


Eyes Wide Open

by EchoInTheSilence



Series: Not Just Another Case [8]
Category: Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: SVU
Genre: F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-05 17:09:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 18
Words: 48,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10313072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoInTheSilence/pseuds/EchoInTheSilence
Summary: After more than two decades, a disappeared serial killer reemerges, and the SVU detectives must look outside their own team to find the one man whose knowledge may be key to stopping him. But secrets kept during the original investigation have a lot more potential for harm than anyone could have guessed.





	1. The Expert's Mind

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine. This story is on an AU track.
> 
> This fic is heavily based around the Criminal Intent episode Blind Spot, though it's set several years after the series end.
> 
> This fic is on a partially overlapping timeline with Little Girl Lost. I've done my best to keep the two stories separate, but if you're following the entire series it's worth knowing that.

"Brace yourselves," the officer warned Benson and Amaro. "This one's rough."

"It was called in as a rape-homicide," Benson said as they slipped under the crime scene tape. "Has that been confirmed?"

"Semen in the vaginal canal," the officer affirmed. "And there's a lot of damage. I know there have been cases where a woman had consensual sex and then was murdered, but this doesn't look like that."

"Oh." Amaro had reached the body first and he couldn't stop himself recoiling. "Rough doesn't begin to cover this."

"We got an ID on the victim?" Benson pressed, just barely suppressing her own reaction as she got her first look at the victim.

"Lisa Moore, twenty-five. My partner's already working on next of kin."

Olivia smiled a little despite the gravity of the situation, nodding at the young officer. It was always nice when they got ahead of the game. "Nice initiative."

He reddened a little. "Thanks."

"Liv, look at this." He had one of the victim's hands in his and was turning it over, examining the wrists.

Olivia examined the marks. "She was tied up."

"That's what I was thinking. And wow, someone had a lot of anger."

Olivia nodded. "Let's see what Warner has to say."

xxxxxxxxx

"COD is multiple stab wounds," Warner reported, "and I'm with the officer on scene. She was raped. Brutally." The ME gently turned her head. "Single injury to the back of the head, about seven or eight hours pre-mortem, probably to incapacitate the victim."

"So he held onto her for seven or eight hours?" Amaro asked.

"Not just held onto her," Warner said grimly. "She was tortured. Most of these injuries are non-fatal, and judging by the amount of clotting, were inflicted over the course of several hours."

"Anything that might help us catch this guy?" Olivia asked.

"Other than the semen, which I already sent to the lab for DNA testing, there's just one thing. No hesitation marks, nothing to suggest he was uncertain in his use of force. Whoever your perp is, I'd be willing to bet he's killed before."

"So we run the MO through the system, maybe get a match," Amaro finished. "Thanks."

Oh, and one more thing. She was covered in Pierre LeRitz."

"In what?" Amaro asked.

"A lotion," Olivia explained, "and not one a young woman would be likely to use. Maybe it was on the killer."

xxxxxxxxx

"This is one of those good-news, bad-news situations," the lab tech reported. "Good news, your guy's DNA is in the system."

"That's great news," Amaro replied. "Who is he?"

"That's the bad news," the tech said, shaking her head. "We don't know." She handed Amaro the file. "The DNA from the semen left in Lisa Moore traces back to twelve unsolved rape-homicides between 1987 and 1992."

"A serial killer," Olivia said grimly.

Amaro was scanning the file. "Matches the MO too, down to the detail. Thanks," he said to the lab tech before turning to his partner. "So that's one question answered and something like a dozen more raised. I'll call the squad room, have them pull the full file."

xxxxxxxxx

"Your serial killer, the one who called himself Sebastian," Rollins reported, "he was active in both Pennsylvania and Maryland, so the FBI was handling it. I got the condensed version, but it's going to take some finagling to get the full case file from them; Murphy's working on it. In the meantime, I thought it might be worth tracking down a couple of the agents who originally worked on the case."

"Good thinking. So, what do you have?" Olivia prompted.

"Well, the lead on the case was an Agent John Kelvin; he died four years ago. But they also had a criminal profiler they called in as a consultant, a Dr. Declan Gage. From what I could gather, he worked this case nonstop, night and day."

"Where is he now?" she pressed.

Rollins winced a little. "LaGuardia Psychiatric in the secure ward. According to the file on him, he confessed to soliciting serial killer Nicole Wallace to kill a man and then murdering Wallace. The DA gave him a plea bargain - he agreed to life without parole in return for being allowed to serve his sentence in a secure hospital instead of a prison."

"So is he sane enough to talk to us?" Amaro asked.

"I don't know," Rollins replied, "but from what I read, he was really invested in this case - too invested, if anything. He went public with the case, _without_ asking his FBI team."

Olivia winced. "Sounds like a bit of a loose canon. So what happened?"

"The opposite of what he intended. As near as anyone could tell, he was trying to flush Sebastian out. Instead, the additional media attention just drove Sebastian underground. He stopped killing, but they also lost pretty much any hope of catching him. Gage had a major meltdown he never fully recovered from; the consensus seems to be that that was the beginning of the end for him, even though he wouldn't actually commit murder for another sixteen years. If there's anything he's going to remember, even after losing his mind, I'd think it would be this case."

"Well," Olivia said wryly, "I guess this means Amaro and I are taking a field trip."

xxxxxxxxx

"Doctor Gage, I'm Detective Benson, this is Detective Amaro."

"Detectives, huh? I trained a detective once. Good man. Too emotional, though. Trouble with objectivity."

"I'm sure," Olivia interrupted, sensing she would be subject to an extended monologue if she didn't cut Gage off at the pass. "But that's not why we're here. We want to talk to you about a case you worked. A serial killer called Sebastian."

Just like that, they had Gage's instant and total attention. "Sebastian? Has he resurfaced?"

The detectives shared a look, silently agreeing to go ahead and tell him. "We think so," Amaro replied.

"You're sure it's not a copycat? Some of them can get pretty damned clever. One of them fooled even me..."

"We have a DNA match," Benson said, interrupting him again. "If this is a copycat, he or she is doing a hell of a job."

But Gage didn't appear to be listening anymore. "If only that case had been real. Bobby would have redeemed me, I know he would have. But it was only Joe. And such a good copy it was, right down to the Pierre LaRitz. Joe tricked me and Bobby - Bobby figured it out. If it had been Sebastian, he would have solved it and redeemed me..."

The detectives shared another glance. _We're getting nowhere with this guy._ Olivia stood. "Thank you for your time, Dr. Gage."

Amaro stood too and followed her out, waiting until they were out of the building before voicing his own opinion. "Well, that was a massive waste of time."

Olivia bit her lip, thinking. "Maybe not. Let's assume for a moment that Gage knows what he's talking about, even if we don't and even if he's all over the place trying to explain." She paused for a moment. "You know those copycat cases Gage mentioned? We need to look over all of those files." She pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed the squad number.

" _Special Victims, Detective Rollins._ "

"It's Olivia," she told the other detective. "I need you to pull the files on any Sebastian copycats you can find, and you and Fin start going through them. Start with closed cases."

" _Sure. What are we looking for?_ "

"A file involving a perp who goes by the name Joe. Once you find any matching files, go through them and find anyone connected to one of the cases named Bobby, or anything that could logically be shortened to Bobby. Amaro and I will join you when we get back, and I'll explain everything."

" _Copy that. I'm on it._ "

xxxxxxxxx

"Any luck?" Amaro asked as they walked into the bullpen.

Fin shook his head. "We've got two Josephs who committed Sebastian copycat crimes - you wouldn't believe how many of those there are - but no Bobby connected to either case. I called the detectives on both crimes, but none of them remember a Bobby having anything to do with those cases. Rollins is still going through the files."

The blonde looked up from her computer. "So, what's this all about?"

"Gage remembers the case, but he started rambling off on a tangent and wasn't listening to our questions," Olivia explained. "But he did mention a copycat case committed by a 'Joe' and a 'Bobby' who was involved in solving it. He said that if it had been Sebastian, Bobby would've solved it, which makes me think that whoever Bobby is, Gage might've told him more about Sebastian than he told the general public. He might be able to give us what we were trying to get from Gage."

Rollins, who had gone back to scanning her computer screen as she listened, suddenly sat up straight. "This Joe - did Gage say it was a man?"

"I don't think so," Amaro said, and Olivia shook her head in agreement. "Why?"

"Because I think I have something. There was a Sebastian copycat case here in New York City 2006 that was traced back to a Jo Gage."

"Related to Dr. Gage?" Fin asked.

"If I had to guess. It doesn't say. But there's more," Rollins added. "The officers who filed the report? Captain Daniel Ross and Detective First Grade Robert Goren."

"That could be Gage's Bobby," Olivia said half to herself. "If he's NYPD, we should be able to reach him."

"Hang on a second." Rollins quickly ran another search. "Okay, Detective Goren retired in 2011, so he's not in the active database. But he is drawing a pension."

"Meaning someone in personnel will have his address," Olivia finished. "Good work. I'll make the call."

xxxxxxxxx

Olivia couldn't help rubbing her eyes as she and Amaro stepped off the elevator. There had been no one home at the address personnel had provided, and so she had left a business card in his door with a note for him to contact her as soon as possible.

They'd been detoured on their way back by a call from Barba regarding a recently-closed case that was about to go to trial, and since they didn't have anything they could chase down on the Sebastian case, they'd agreed to head down to his office and go over their respective testimonies. As a result, it was almost three hours later than when they had left.

Rollins came hurrying down the hallway to intercept them. "Hey, Liv. There's, um, a rather large man here who specifically wants to talk to you. He's sitting at your desk. Just thought I'd give you a heads-up."

"Thanks. I appreciate it."

Olivia's eyes were drawn to the man sitting at her desk as soon as he was within her line of sight. Rollins hadn't been exaggerating to call him a 'rather large man'. He wasn't especially heavyset; he was just _big_. Even sitting down, she could tell he was well over six feet tall and large-framed.

He seemed to sense her gaze and looked up as she approached. She smiled at him, trying to be reassuring. "I'm Sergeant Benson, can I help you?"

"That's what I wanted to ask you." He stood, extending a large, long-fingered hand, and Olivia realized she hadn't been overestimating his height at all. "Bobby Goren. You left me your card?"


	2. The Expert's Legacy

"Most people would just pick up the phone."

The big man smiled. "I know. But I wasn't doing anything, and I admit I was curious. I hadn't heard anything about a crime in the building or the area, and I didn't see cards in any of my neighbors' doors. In other words, this wasn't a canvass for witnesses. you were looking specifically for me."

Olivia couldn't help but smile back. "Sit down, and I'll explain." She sat in her chair, and he took another chair facing her. "You're familiar with Dr. Declan Gage?"

Goren's face hardened a little at the name. "I was. I haven't spoken to him for the better part of a decade, and I have no intention of changing that fact."

"Understood," Olivia said quickly, "but this concerns something he might have told you before that. His work on the Sebastian case?"

There was no denying he reacted to that. A flash of recognition, a flinch suggesting the name was associated with an unpleasant memory. "His white whale case. It wasn't the only case he ever had that went cold, but it was the only one he couldn't let go of." She saw realization flash across his face. "You have a case you think is Sebastian?"

"We're almost positive," she told him after a moment's hesitation. It wasn't like she could hide that from him once she started asking more questions. "We not only matched the MO, we matched the DNA on the body."

His eyes widened. "Wow. Just like that, after twenty years?"

"Looks that way."

"So why come to me?"

"We went to Dr. Gage first, but he wasn't making a lot of sense and wasn't responsive to our questions."

Goren nodded sadly. "Permanent, irreversible brain damage, that's what the experts said. And he was never entirely connected to the rest of the world to begin with. So, how did you find me?"

"He sort of pointed us in your direction."

"Sort of? Let me guess. Dropped some sort of obscure hint as if you knew exactly what he was talking about despite having zero context and you spent an hour or more chasing it down to me?" He gave a soft laugh at Olivia's shocked look. "There was a time Declan and I were close, I know how he is. If you don't mind my asking, what was the hint?"

"He mentioned your first name - Bobby - in connection with a Sebastian copycat case involving someone named Jo, and said something to suggest that the 'Bobby' in question was familiar with the original. We went through all the files on Sebastian copycats and found your name on an arrest report."

"Jo Gage," he said knowingly. "Declan's daughter. I took her confession."

"From there, all I had to do was call personnel for the address. And so, here we are."

"And you want information on Sebastian."

"Anything you can tell us. Ideally, I'd like you to have a look at the file and fill in any blanks you notice. I don't want to take up a ton of your time -"

"I don't mind, really. I did this kind of work for a long time, and I enjoyed it." He took the file from her and began to scan it. "In fact, I still do some consulting work from time to time."

"For the NYPD?" Olivia asked hopefully.

"And the FBI, and the DA's office once in a while," he said a little distractedly. Then he seemed to catch up to what Olivia was asking. "You want me to work this case?"

"If you'd be willing. I'm not trying to pull you away from another jobs -"

"I'm between assignments right now," Goren replied, "and I'm perfectly willing. I'm just not - my usual experience in consulting for NYPD is that the Brass or some captain asks for my help and the primaries on the case are very grudging about the situation. There have been exceptions, I still have friends in the department, but most cops seem to think that my leaving was the best thing that happened to the NYPD in a long time."

"What happened, if you don't mind telling me?"

He shrugged. "Well, I was never all that popular to begin with. My methods weren't exactly standard, and a lot of people didn't know what to make of it. If you knew how many partners I went through before I found one who stuck with me - anyway, it really got bad when I managed to do the near-impossible and cross both the Brass and the good-old-boy cops simultaneously."

"Dare I ask how?"

"A cop got shot, and his partner IDed a guy they'd been trying to bust - they were protecting a witness, the surviving partner was on a bathroom break. Something about the partner's story seemed off to me, so I pushed it a little further. Turned out his bathroom break was a break to screw his girlfriend in a car up the block, and his ID was made up to cover the fact that he was partially blind. But yeah, if there's a way to get both those groups angry at the same time, that would be it."

"But the ID really wasn't valid?"

"Not even close. He IDed an Asian gang member in his thirties. The actual doer was a seventeen-year-old Hispanic kid whose father had gone to prison for murdering a cop based on another questionable ID, this one from the officer the kid murdered - I cleared that one too," he added so offhandedly Olivia had to wonder if he even realized he was bragging. "But everyone seemed to get stuck on what happened with the original suspect, and then it just went downhill from there. I got fired, and then asked back by a Captain who thought I got a raw deal - he was a good guy, but the whole situation was awkward and uncomfortable to say the least. I had well over my twenty years by then, so I put in my papers, told them I'd be willing to consult if they wanted me, and left."

Olivia didn't know if she was more surprised by the story itself or the fact that this man had been willing to tell that story to a virtual stranger whose reactions he'd have had no way to anticipate. "Well," she said finally, "I don't see any reason to have a problem with you. If the guys you pissed off had gotten their way, there'd be a cop killer walking free and an innocent man in prison."

He smiled. "Okay, then. Give me the paperwork."

xxxxxxxxx

"Who on Earth gave you this? I don't think I've ever seen a file this sparse on the details."

Olivia had gone to speak with Murphy while Goren took a look at the file, and she'd been shocked to discover that the squad Lieutenant harbored a trace of the attitude the former detective had expected from her. Fortunately, the ideas didn't seem to have been entrenched, and Olivia had been able to persuade him that they needed to take advantage of Goren's expertise and familiarity with the case. She'd come back to find him still studying the file intensely.

"FBI got territorial," she told him. "That's all they handed over. You said you've consulted for them; any chance you might have some hooks that would help us get the complete file? Our Lieutenant's been pushing at it all day and nothing's changing."

He sat in silence for a moment, clearly deep in thought. "I don't know about people I've worked with in consulting, but there is someone, a former colleague of mine who's with the FBI - she's been bounced between them and NYPD a lot. In any case, she was just recently transferred to work with someone I'm still close with. I can make a call and that might give me a way in."

"Make the call," Olivia said quickly. "If we can get that file, it might really help."

"The only thing is, I'd probably end up having to explain what's going on. I understand wanting to keep it internal, to prevent a panic, but I can't - I can't lie to her, to either of them really. I never could. I promise she's not the kind of person who'd leak a case file."

One look at Goren's eyes was all Olivia needed to know he was sincere. He fully knew that his connection, whoever she was, would not leak the file. "Okay."

xxxxxxxxx

"Barek's working on that file for me," Goren told Olivia. "One way or another, we ought to have it soon enough."

"I've filled the others in that you're working with us," Olivia replied. "There are only five of us including Lieutenant Murphy. I think you know Detective Tutuola -"

"Yes, we were in Narcotics at the same time." He shook the other man's hand warmly.

"And this is Detective Amaro, and Detective Rollins."

Goren shook each of their hands, and then Olivia called the focus back to the case. "So right off the top, what can you tell us that isn't in the version of the file we have?"

"Well, most of the basic details are here - the MO, the names of his victims, the dates and locations of each murder. What isn't in here is a lot of the more subjective work, like what Gage was contracted to do. His profile isn't in the file."

"Do you know it?" Amaro asked hopefully.

"Not word-for-word, but the general sense of it. The most notable thing is that Gage believed Sebastian was toying with him - not with the cops in general, but with _him_ in particular. Now, some of that might have been Dec having a persecution complex, but if he's right on any level, that tells us something. It isn't unheard of for serial killers to personalize their relationships with the cops hunting them - I dealt with one myself who did, and let me tell you it's _not_ pleasant - it's not common either."

"So what does that mean?" Rollins pressed.

Goren bit his lip, thinking hard. "Profiling is as much an art as a science, but I'd say it means he gets as much pleasure out of the hunt as he does out of the murders themselves. Nicole did," he added half to himself. "Killers like that take pleasure in the fact that so many people are putting in so much effort to find them, and even more so if they can pick an individual to mess with. If Sebastian did toy with Dec, I'd have to say he enjoyed the fact that he could get under the skin of a professional and throw his head out of whack. Gage's meltdown would have been the ultimate victory for him." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I wish I had his notes. Hopefully, they'll come with the file."

"You think they'll be coherent?" Amaro asked skeptically.

"I know how he thinks - how he thought, anyway, before the brain damage, and honestly I'm not so sure he's different now, he just lost any impulse control he had. In any case, I can follow his trains of thought for the most part, even if they seem nonsensical. I have his abridged notes on Sebastian from the Jo Gage case, I'll share them, but I couldn't help but get the sense that there was something he, ah, _abridged_ out."

"What?" Olivia asked.

Goren shrugged. "I have no idea. I feel like the answer is in the Jo Gage case somewhere, but I've been over and over it in my head, and I can't put my finger on it."

"Why Jo Gage?" Rollins asked, confused. "She couldn't have been the real thing."

"But she was good enough to convince her father that she was. Profilers are usually the first people to make a crime as a copycat, because they spend so much time analyzing and trying to get into the killer's head. I know the Pierre LaRitz was part of it, but there had to be something more..." He sighed, rubbing his neck again. "I'll figure it out eventually. If Sebastian's original timeline holds, we have five months before we get another victim."

"That's good, anyway," Olivia commented. "I'm not saying we can afford to relax, but if you knew how many times we worked on countdowns of a matter of days..."

"I've done it more than a few times myself," Goren replied. "Believe me, I get it."

"Look," Murphy added from the doorway, "it's already quitting time, and I don't see anything we can do right now, not without those files. Why don't you guys go home, look at it with fresh eyes in the morning."

The detectives nodded their assent, all starting to get up and gather their things. Fin and Rollins spoke quietly, and then the blonde turned to her colleagues at the next desk. "Fin and I are going to grab a drink. Any of you guys want to come?" She looked from them to the tall man next to Olivia. "Goren, you're welcome too."

"Appreciate it," Olivia said, "but honestly, I just want to get home."

"Don't you know?" Fin added, teasing. "She's _married_ now. Has to get home to the family."

She blushed a little but laughed too. "It's been two months, are you guys ever going to let that slide?"

"Not as long as you keep acting like a newlywed," Rollins teased. "Nick? Goren? You in?"

"I am," Amaro said, giving the blonde a smile. Fin and Olivia exchanged a knowing smile of their own. Rollins and Amaro's relationship wasn't exactly a secret.

"Sorry, I can't either," Goren replied. "I need to check up on a friend. But I appreciate you asking, I really do. Maybe next time?"

"Damn, man," Fin said lightly, "you're making me the third wheel here."

"Shut up, Fin," Rollins said lightly, slapping him on the arm. "Come on, let's go."

xxxxxxxxx

Goren was less than surprised to see a light coming from under his apartment door. He was even less surprised by the blonde woman who was curled up in his large armchair, apparently asleep. He stood there for a moment, just looking. _God, she's so beautiful._

She turned her head, letting out a small whimper in her sleep, and he was instantly at her side, running his long fingers through her hair. "Shh, shh, it's okay now. I'm here."

Her head jerked and her eyes fluttered open. "Oh, hey." She straightened up a bit. "I didn't mean to fall asleep."

"It's okay. If you fall asleep while you're just sitting there, it probably means you needed it. Besides," he added, smiling, "I like watching you sleep. How are you doing?"

"I'm -" his deep, intense gaze stopped her from saying _okay_. "I'm a little shaky," she admitted. "I hate this so much. She's as good as dead; why does she still get to affect me like this?"

"Come here." He opened his arms and she fell into them; he cradled her close. "Oh, Alex, I'm so sorry I had to get you involved."

"No, I know why you did it," she replied, resting her head on his shoulder, letting his warm embrace make her feel safe. "You need that file, and Carolyn's your best hope of getting it, and now that she's working with me, I'm your obvious link to her. If that information can save a life, it's worth all this."

"I just wish there had been a better option." He carefully gathered her little frame up in his arms and slid into the chair, still holding her close. "I'm still so sorry I let that happen to you."

"It's not your fault," she whispered into his ear. "You know, Logan and Ross told me all about your interrogation of Gage. The second it looked like he might be responsible, you turned on him, you were ready to stop at nothing to get the truth out of him. I can't think how many people in your position would have insisted it couldn't have been him, he'd never do such a thing."

He ran his fingers through her hair, cradling her head to his shoulder. "Even then, you mattered more to me than he did. And now...now you mean even more."

"Remind me why it took us so long to get here?" she asked with a small laugh. "You and me, together - I think everyone in the world saw this happening before the idea crossed either of our minds."

"I'm glad we never became more than friends when we were working together," he admitted. "You know they would have split us up if we had, and after having you as a partner, I doubt my working with anyone else would've gone well. Just ask Bishop." He smiled, and his heart was warmed by the smile she gave him in response.

"Agreed," she whispered back. "I'm just sorry it took us so long to get here after you retired and I transferred."

"I guess by then, we'd gotten so used to denying our feelings that we'd started believing it ourselves." He kissed the top of her head. "When you called me two months ago and asked to have dinner, I barely dared to hope...I was on the verge of convincing myself that I was misreading your intentions through the lens of everything I wanted, that it wasn't _really_ a date."

"Bet that illusion disappeared within the first five minutes of that dinner."

"You always did hate beating around the bush." He smiled into her hair. "But even so, just saying out of the blue that you had just come from the wedding of two cops who used to be partners when you called me and that you called because you thought we should give it a try...well, that's pretty blunt, even for you."

"Are you sorry that I did it?"

"Not in the slightest." He brushed her hair back, tipped her chin up, and gently kissed her. "This - this is something I stopped letting myself hope for for so long."

"Can I - can I stay the night?" she asked softly. "I'm afraid...nightmares."

"Of course." He bent forward, kissing the top of her head. "You're always welcome here, don't you know that?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, they're a couple now. No prizes for guessing whose wedding Alex was at that gave her the idea!


	3. Brothers and Sisters In Blue

"Must be nice being a consultant," Fin teased. "No paperwork, and you get to come in whenever you feel like it."

Goren didn't laugh. "I'd meant to be in an hour ago," he said, clearly frustrated that this hadn't come to be. "But my girlfriend wasn't feeling well this morning, and then my car started giving me trouble on the way in. I was worried it wouldn't make it into the garage."

"Don't worry about it," Olivia assured him, walking up from behind him. "We all have those days. Hell, I probably have more of them than anyone; I have a toddler and a seven-year-old."

"Do you mind if I have a friend of mine come into the garage and take a look at it?" he asked her. "I know it's not standard to have civilians walking into our parking garage, but it's kind of a specialty car, and not every mechanic knows how to deal with it."

"No, go ahead. Just have your friend sign in."

"Hey, look what we got!" Rollins walked into the squad room, clutching a large, thick yellow envelope. "I think this is the Sebastian file."

"Finally," Amaro said, walking up to get a look at it. "It's been a week."

"Goren, I think this is for you." Rollins handed him a single sheet of lined paper with a handwritten note.

_Bobby_

_Here are the full crime scene and autopsy reports from the Sebastian case, including pictures. I'm still pushing them to hand over the rest of the file; they're being extremely territorial, you know how they hate to share. Hope this helps in the meantime!_

_-Carolyn_

"Better than nothing, but not as good as everything," he commented, handing the note to Olivia so she could read it.

She made an audible sound of frustration. "I don't get it. I mean, I understand wanting a collar for yourself, but taking that to the extreme of withholding information that could save a life?"

Goren smiled a little sadly. "As much as we wish it were different, not all cops' motives are pure, and I'm not just talking about those who are outright dirty. They blew this case twenty-one years ago; they don't want to be showed up by the NYPD."

"Then let them put their effort into working the case," Olivia grumbled. "But instead, they just block us. Come on, give me that file. Let's see what we got."

xxxxxxxxx

"Hey, Liv!"

She turned, smiling when she saw the petite blonde woman standing near the door. "Alex. What are you doing here?"

"Helping out a friend." The Lieutenant smiled. "So, how's married life treating you?"

"I can't complain. Unless you count complaining about the old married woman jokes my squad keeps throwing at me."

Alex laughed. "Well, they'll stop. Eventually."

"How would you know?" Olivia teased. "You've never been married. Have you?" she added belatedly when Alex didn't reply.

"For three years, fifteen years ago."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay, you couldn't have known. It's not something I talk about very much."

"What happened?" Olivia asked. "Messy divorce?"

"No." Alex smiled sadly, shaking her head. "I'm not divorced. Joe - Joe was a cop too, worked narcotics. One night he was making an undercover buy from a drug dealer who had his nervous teenage cousin with him. He moved the wrong way, and nervous teenage cousin pulled the trigger."

"Oh, God, I'm sorry," Olivia said again.

"Don't. It's okay. I don't avoid talking about it because I can't deal with it or anything like that. It just seems so far removed from my life now. So," she said, quickly changing the subject. "You and Elliot."

"It's going great. I'm almost worried we're going to crash sooner or later, we're flying so high right now. But when I really think about it, it's not like that's some constant of the universe, that unbelievably good now means it'll fall apart later. We just have to keep working at it. So, you told me at the wedding that you were thinking of contacting your former partner."

"Actually," she corrected with a smile, "I said you inspired me."

"Okay, I inspired you. So, did you? What happened?"

Before Alex could reply, the garage door creaked open, and Olivia looked over to see Bobby Goren standing there. The first thought that crossed her mind was how bizarre it was to have both of them in her field of vision. Bobby Goren was one of the biggest people she'd ever met, and probably the biggest person she'd actually worked with. Even in heels, Alex Eames barely came up past Olivia's shoulder, and she was as slender as she was short.

She looked back to Eames, intending to introduce her to their consultant, only to see that the blonde woman's eyes had lit up at the sight of him. "Hey."

He smiled. "Hey. Thanks for coming out of your way."

She smiled back. "Anytime. What's the damage on the car?"

"Lewis towed it back to his shop. He said he thinks the engine needs a new belt."

She grinned full-on now. "Guess you're stuck with me as a chauffeur for the time being, then."

It wasn't the words that struck Olivia so much as the nonverbal parts of their interaction. Despite their differences, they seemed to fall into an almost perfect sync with each other the moment they occupied the same space. It was like they breathed in harmony. "You two know each other," she said finally.

"Oh, sorry," Bobby said quickly.

Alex turned to the dark-haired woman with a smile. "You were asking about my partner from Major Case?"

"You two were partners," she realized.

"Nine years," Bobby replied. "Right up until I retired."

The unbelievable connection between them suddenly seemed to make sense to Olivia. She and Elliot had certainly grown close in their twelve years of partnership, and Elliot had been by all measures more or less a normal cop. She could tell that Bobby Goren was one of the last people who could ever be described as normal, and an abnormal cop would likely have had to struggle to fit in. She'd always been quick to defend Elliot against IAB or anyone else who seemed a threat to him; she had no doubt Alex would have defended her partner against the entire department if necessary. The closeness of a partnership would have only been heightened by the sense of being together against the world.

"Olivia's the friend I told you about," Alex was explaining. "The one whose wedding I was at."

"So your new husband is your old partner?" he asked, clearly having connected the rest of the dots on his own.

Olivia nodded. "Yep. We were partnered for almost twelve."

"Must've been a good partnership," Alex said wryly.

"I could say the same to you."

Alex shrugged, not denying Olivia's comment. "It was. This man here's the best partner I've ever had."

The big man dropped his head, staring at his shoes. Alex smiled knowingly. "Although he absolutely cannot take a compliment. C'mon, let's go home."

By some unspoken agreement, he walked around and settled himself in the passenger's seat while she slid in behind the wheel. Olivia thought she'd known couples who'd been married for years that weren't half so in sync. She smiled as she watched the car drive out.

"I guess I owe Olivia," Bobby commented as they drove out of the garage. "For bringing us back together."

"She shouldn't have had to," Alex replied softly. "I should've reached out to you on my own."

"Hey," he chided gently. "Nothing was stopping me from making the first move."

They were stopped at a light, so Alex chanced leaning over the center console to briefly kiss him. He smiled warmly. "And if I'd realized what I was missing," he admitted, "I would have."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little short, I know, but I wanted to get all our major players on the same page before I throw in the next major plot point. 
> 
> This chapter references the CI episode Amends.


	4. Complications

The first thing Bobby realized when he woke was that he was alone in bed. The spot next to him on the bed was still warm to the touch. "Alex?"

"In here," she called out from the bathroom.

He pulled himself out of bed and walked over to join her. She was curled up on the floor, her head resting against the toilet basin. He knelt down to join her and began to rub her back. "Oh, Alex."

She closed her eyes, relaxing under his touch. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. You're sick, it's not your fault." He kissed the top of her head, moving his hand from her back to her stomach in an attempt to ease her nausea.

"Oh, that feels good," she groaned. "Thank you."

"Feeling a little better?"

She nodded. "I guess you still won't listen if I suggest you give yourself some distance before you end up catching this - whatever it is?"

"No," he said simply. "You need me."

She didn't feel well enough to continue the argument, especially since they'd had it before. She'd woken up sick a week earlier and whatever this illness was, it was extremely tenacious. Sometimes she felt fine, and then at other times she could only huddle over a toilet and wait for the nausea to subside. She'd been forcing herself to go to work, but for the first time in a long time, she was glad that she spent a lot more time behind a desk than she had at Major Case.

He stood, extending a large hand to help her up. "I've still got that box of peppermint tea," he offered.

"That sounds amazing."

"Look, I know it's pointless to tell you to stay home. Even if I think you should."

"Would you?"

"Probably not," he admitted, smiling. "But at least go see a doctor when you're done today, okay?"

"You want to know what you're in for?" she teased.

"I want to know what's making you so miserable," he corrected gently. "I know you feel bad, and I hate seeing you like that."

"Okay," she conceded, still teasing. "But if anyone asks, I'm doing it for you."

xxxxxxxxx

"Long day?" Alex asked as Bobby walked through the door a few minutes after eight at night.

"Oh, you have no idea," he groaned tiredly. "One dead end after another - but only after they looked like promising enough leads for us to spend hours chasing them down." He flopped down into the armchair, then looked over at her, taking in how uneasy she looked. "What is it?"

"We need to talk," she said a little nervously.

"Okay."

"Well, I took your advice and went to the doctor," she began hesitantly.

His brow creased in concern. "And? It's serious?"

"Well, the good news for you is, it's not contagious." She took a long breath as though she was about to dive deep underwater. "Remember that night we were discussing? When we had dinner, after barely seeing each other for years?"

"Of course."

"Remember what happened next?"

"Of course I do, we -" He blamed his long day for the fact that it took him a moment to catch on to what she was saying. "We'd been drinking, we were acting on impulse, and we didn't stop to think about - you're -"

"Yep," she said softly. "I'm pregnant. I should've put it together before, but I wasn't sick like this when I had Nate." She let out a long sigh. "God, I'm still trying to get my head around it."

"What are you going to do?" he asked her softly.

"Me? I kind of thought this was a decision we ought to be making together."

He shrugged. "I'm not the one who's spent the last week on and off the bathroom floor. I can be by your side, but in the end you're the one who has to go through this. Besides, with my genetics -"

"That is not a factor," she interrupted. "When are you going to let that go? Look at you, look at how amazing you turned out. Genetics don't make a person, Bobby, and if they did, well, chances are I'd end up with a child like you, which is nothing to complain about. And even the stuff that is genetic - it's not like it was when your mom got sick. There are lots of new and more effective treatments that weren't available to her."

He reached across the couch slowly, talking her little hand and encasing it in his much larger one. "Whatever you decide, Alex, I'm here for you. The whole way."

"And if I have this baby?"

"Then I'll be there for both of you," he said simply.

For a long moment, she said nothing, staring into space. "I thought this door had closed years ago," she said finally. "I'd kind of accepted the idea that Nate had been the only baby I'd ever carry. And now to realize that it doesn't have to be..." She turned her hand slowly, lacing her fingers in with his. "And there's no one I'd rather have a child with than you. You'd be an amazing father, you know that?" She met his dark eyes. "I want this baby, Bobby. I do."

"Then I guess we'll get a chance to test your theory," he said softly.

"My theory?"

"That I'd be a good father."

xxxxxxxxx

"Something on your mind?"

"Hmm?" Goren glanced over at the unit Sergeant, forcing his focus back into the squad room. "Sorry, I just got lost in thought for a minute."

"I could tell," Olivia replied lightly. "Either that or you were just really intently studying my kids." She nodded towards the picture of Eli and Noah that he'd been looking at right as he zoned out.

"You just have the two?"

"Ah, man," Fin groaned. "Don't get her started."

"Shut up, Fin," Olivia bantered back, smiling. "Your desk is over there, no one's forcing you to stay." She turned back to Goren. "The answer to your question is, it's kind of complicated."

"How so?"

"My husband was married before me; his first wife died about two years ago. They had five kids, including Eli - that's my seven-year-old, I'm in the process of formally adopting him. The other four are all adults - Eli was kind of a late-in-life surprise for Elliot and Kathy. I like them all, a lot, but I can't really think of them as my kids. For God's sake, I'm barely old enough to be their mother. I'm only fourteen years older than his oldest kid." She smiled. "You know, I was the second person who held Eli, after his mom. I was in the car with his mother, doing a favor for Elliot back when we were partners, and we got hit by a drunk driver. I got out with just cuts and bruises, but Kathy was pinned in the car and she went into labor. She gave birth in the ambulance and flatlined right after, so the EMT had me hold the baby while he worked on Kathy."

"What about the baby?"

"Noah. We found him with an unlicensed foster family while we were tracking down a kidnap victim - it turned out Noah was too, but we didn't know that until a few months later. He bounced around the foster system for awhile, and then we found his mother, only for her to end up dead a few days later. I'd been at all his family court hearings, and so the judge asked me from the bench to foster him."

"And you did."

"I thought he deserved better. I thought he was special the first time I saw him." Her cell phone beeped. "Excuse me?"

"Sure."

xxxxxxxxx

Alex smiled as her boyfriend's long fingers ran gently over her stomach. "I don't think you'll be able to feel anything yet."

"I know," he replied, but he didn't remove his hand. "It's just so amazing to think about. _Our child_ is growing in there."

"You've seen me pregnant before," she teased gently.

"Yeah." She could feel his grin against her hair as he spoke. "And I might've tried to do this then too, if I had thought for a second you'd let me." He shook his head. "But this is even more amazing. I'm still trying to get my head around the idea that we actually made a baby. I mean, of course I've known in a textbook way where babies come from since I was a kid, but this is so far beyond just _knowing._ " He slipped his arm around her abdomen and gently pulled her back towards him. "It's incredible."

She rolled over to face him and trailed her fingers down his cheek, gently drawing his head to her and kissing him on the lips. "Yeah. It's incredible."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twist time! I know this took awhile, but I don't want to rush these chapters, I want to get them right. I know that sometimes extends my update time, as does life getting in the way (as it did for this chapter), but if I'm going to do this I want to do it right, and this chapter actually is kind of important to the plot.
> 
> This chapter references the SVU episodes Paternity, Downloaded Child and Spring Awakening (much as I can't stand that last one; the Ellie Porter subplot isn't bad.).


	5. A Changing Game

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: semi-graphic description of sexual assault in this chapter. If you want to read the chapter but not the graphic part, I recommend skipping down past the first scene break (as marked with a series of xes).

**"** _It's hard to die from falling down the stairs. It's basically a series of eight-inch falls. Your natural instinct is to cover your head._ _"_

Elizabeth Rodgers' words were the first thing that floated into Alex's fuzzy head. She was lying on a concrete floor of some sort, and she couldn't immediately remember how she'd gotten there.

She reached out a hand, trying to get her bearings, and felt a smooth, rounded corner. _Stairs. I fell down the stairs._ That at least explained why the ME's words were in her head now.

She blinked her eyes open slowly, letting her surroundings come into focus. _I'm in a parking garage._

She took what was meant to be a steadying breath and almost gagged. She was surrounded by a scent, a sickly-sweet scent she always associated with the horrible, terrifying day she'd spent tied up in a basement, courtesy of Jo Gage.

And then the memories came rushing back with such an intensity that it took her breath away.

She'd been on her way back from a meeting - a confrontation, really - with one of the local precincts, a precinct she'd had to inform that the Homeland Security Task Force was taking over one of their cases. On her way back, she'd decided to stop by a food court, reasoning that it made sense to eat on one of the rare occasions when she felt hungry instead of sick. Even four months into her pregnancy, her nausea wasn't giving her much respite. Her first pregnancy, where she'd carried a baby for her sister, seemed like a walk in the park compared to this one.

And then, in the space of a few moments, everything had changed. As she'd been walking past the stairwell, the door had opened, slamming into her. Before she'd had a chance to react, a hand had grabbed her by the hair, jerking her backwards into a pair of arms. She'd smelled it then, the smell that still haunted some of her worst nightmares. A gloved hand had pulled her gun from its holster, dropping it to the ground, and she'd heard him kick it away as she was pulled backwards and into the stairwell. She remembered the horrible feeling as the door had slammed shut that she was now cut off from any chance of help. She hadn't stopped fighting him for a moment, but it had become all too clear that his skills were equal to hers, and by hitting her with the door, he'd given himself the element of surprise he'd needed to get the initial upper hand, an upper hand she now couldn't seem to regain.

He'd thrown her up against the wall, slamming her head into the concrete so hard that she nearly blacked out. He'd taken full advantage of her momentary daze to shove a hand under her skirt and yank down her stockings and underwear. She'd fought him harder than she'd thought she was able to, desperate to stop what she knew he intended, but it hadn't made a difference. If anything, it had seemed to excite her assailant.

"I could do anything I wanted to you," he had whispered in her ear after he'd finished, still holding her pinned against the wall. "I could kill you right here...or take you with me...and there wouldn't be a damn thing you could do about it." He'd let that hang in the air, appearing to relish Alex's fear. "But then," he'd added finally, "it might garble my message, and I want to make sure your boyfriend hears me loud and clear." He had run his thumb across her chin, leaving a trail of what she immediately knew by the smell was Pierre LaRitz. "He was trained by the best, but that was decades ago. I wonder, does he retain enough skills to catch me now? Or has he gotten soft in the years gone by?" Then, barely giving Alex time to process his words, he'd pulled her away from the wall and shoved her down the stairs.

 _How could this happen to me?_ The short phrase seemed to cycle through her mind on endless repeat. _How could this happen?_

She felt through her pockets until her trembling fingers finally closed around her mercifully unbroken cell phone. She was so shaken that it took her three tries to unlock it, but finally, she was staring at her contact list. She pressed a name and then held the device to her ear. _Please pick up. Please..._

xxxxxxxxx

"Still no luck on those files?" Rollins grumbled. "I feel like we're trying to follow directions with half a map."

"Believe me, I understand," Goren replied. "This is frustrating me too."

"I thought you had a contact," Fin pointed out.

"I do. But this isn't her fault. She gets it; she wants to help."

Olivia's phone chose that moment to beep loudly, and she stepped away as Goren continued. "She just doesn't have that much influence."

"Benson," Olivia said into her phone, tuning out the conversation in the squad room with practiced ease.

" _Olivia?_ "

Olivia just barely stopped herself blurting out the woman's name. "Yes, what is it?"

" _I need your help._ " It was quick, without preamble.

"What's going on?"

" _Please_ ," she replied, and it was only then that Olivia realized the other woman's voice was shaky. " _I can't - not over the phone._ "

The Sergeant felt an unpleasant twist in her stomach. Her mind was starting to form a scenario, and she just hoped she was wrong, that her own experience was biasing her reaction. "Are - are you okay?"

" _I don't know_." There was a pause; it sounded like she was fighting back tears. " _Please, Olivia. I'll explain when I see you._ "

The more Alex talked, the more Olivia suspected she wasn't going to need an explanation. She prayed she was wrong, but that possibility was seeming less and less likely. "Where are you? I'm on my way."

xxxxxxxxx

Even as focused and concerned as she was, Olivia's training and experience drew her attention to the abandoned weapon lying on the parking garage floor a few seconds before the woman in front of her bent to pick it up. Instantly, Olivia's own gun was in her hands. "Police! Don't touch the weapon."

The woman turned, hands raised, and it was only then that the SVU detective saw the badge clipped to the stranger's belt. "I'm sorry," she said quickly, holstering her gun. "From the back, you look like a civilian."

"Understood." The woman gave a small smile. "If our positions were reversed, I probably would've done the same thing."

"Mind if I ask what the FBI is doing here?"

"The FBI isn't doing anything," the woman replied wryly. "I just find people are less inclined to jerk me around if I wear the badge where they can see it."

"Let me rephrase." Olivia smiled slightly despite herself. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for a colleague - no, a friend," she corrected a moment later. "She was here the last time I talked to her, and now she's overdue and not answering her phone. Maybe I'm worrying too much, but I have a gut feeling that something's wrong."

Olivia just nodded, her mind focused back on the reason she'd come now that there was no immediate threat to worry about. She had already pinpointed the door Alex had described, just yards from where she'd seen the FBI woman bend down to pick up the gun, and now she stepped through it.

Even as the door swung shut behind her, the detective's eyes had already fixed on the figure huddled on the next landing down. "Alex?"

"Olivia?" the familiar voice called back.

She barely waited for the confirmation before she raced down the stairs, taking them two at a time until she was finally able to kneel next to her friend. She immediately noticed that the other woman's underwear and stockings were pulled down, and she knew that her awful suspicion was true. She barely needed to ask the question that nonetheless came to her lips. "Alex, what happened?"

"He came out of nowhere." Shock was evident in her voice. "I didn't even see him until he grabbed me."

"It's okay," Olivia assured her, slipping into a role she'd played almost every day for a decade and a half. "It's okay. It's not your fault."

"He raped me," she whispered, and then immediately recoiled, unable to believe what she'd just said. She felt herself start to tremble. Hearing the words that had slipped from her lips made it all too real.

"Alex?" Olivia's voice managed to cut through the torrent of her emotions. "You're safe now. Just stay with me."

"Okay. Okay, I can do that." She forced herself to focus on the detective. "You're the expert; what do I do now?"

The tone in that question tugged at Olivia's heart. She could tell Alex was trying to be matter-of-fact but she had sounded more lost and vulnerable than anything. "I'd like to take you to the hospital, have you checked out to make sure you're okay and have a rape kit done. You think you can do that?"

"Yeah," the blonde said softly. "But - can we take a car? I don't want an ambulance, I'm not that badly hurt, I can't deal with - with this turning into that level of emergency." She finally raised her head, letting Olivia see her frightened, tear-filled eyes. "Please."

"Okay. We'll take the car."

"Alex?" Another voice echoed in the stairwell, and Olivia realized after a moment that it was the woman she'd encountered in the parking garage. "Alex? Are you in here?"

Alex flinched ever so slightly, dropping her gaze back to the garage floor. "Oh, God, no," she whispered. "I can't let her see me like this."

But it quickly became clear that that was inevitable. Just as Olivia had easily been able to see Alex, the newcomer quickly made out both of them. In moments, she was down the stairs.

The shock on her face as she took in Alex's condition was evident, but to her credit, she quickly forced a mask of composure on herself. She sat down on the top step and reached a hand out to the blonde, not touching her but holding it out for Alex to take if she wanted.

Alex spoke first, still staring at the floor. "I'm sorry I didn't answer your calls," she whispered. "I didn't know what to say."

"It's okay," the other woman said gently. "I know. It's okay."

"Carolyn," Alex began shakily, "don't -"

She didn't even know how to finish that sentence. _Don't tell anyone. Don't make a big deal out of this._ So many other things. All she knew was that it felt like the world she'd known was crumbling around her, and if the other woman's behavior changed, it would just be one more piece coming down.

And somehow, Carolyn understood. Ever the profiler, she read everything that was packed into those two words. "I won't. I promise."

Alex finally looked up again, accepting her friend's extended hand. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Alex looked slowly back to Olivia. "Can we -"

"Of course." She stood and helped Alex to her feet.

The three women walked back up the stairs in silence, a silence broken only after they were back on the parking level when Alex abruptly choked. "Sorry -" she managed. "I'm going to be sick." Then she bolted for a nearby garbage can.

"Carolyn, right?" Olivia asked softly while the blonde was out of earshot.

"Sorry." It was only then that the FBI woman seemed to realize that there hadn't been a formal introduction. "Yeah. Carolyn Barek. Sorry."

"It's okay. Listen, I know this is a lot to ask, but can you - can you stay here and keep an eye on things until I can get officers here? If we're going to have any chance of nailing this bastard, we need to make sure we don't contaminate the scene."

"Understood." She bit down on her lip, glancing over at where her friend was still bent over the garbage can. "Just get him."

xxxxxxxxx

Alex spent most of the ride to the hospital in complete silence, her hands tightly clasped in her lap, her eyes fixed on the dashboard. Olivia let her have her silence until they were a few blocks from the hospital, breaking it with a soft question. "Is there anyone I can call for you?"

"No," Alex replied. "Thank you. I - I know better than to expect to be able to go through all this without the people in my life finding out, but I don't even know how to start that conversation." She finally unclasped her hands, bringing them to her face in what Olivia knew was an attempt to either hold back tears or hide them, or both. "Just - just let me start getting my head around what happened to me before I have to deal with everyone else's reactions."

Olivia felt her heart clench. Years of experience made no difference; this never got easier, and this case was twice as hard as most. Alex wasn't just a case, she was Olivia's friend. "Okay," she said simply. "Whatever's easiest for you." Silence filled the car for a few moments before she spoke again. "And Alex?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm here for you. You're not alone."

Alex glanced over, and as soon as she saw the gratitude in those eyes, Olivia knew she'd said the right thing, even before the blonde spoke a shaky reply. "Thank you, Olivia. Thank you so much."

xxxxxxxxx

Alex silently complied with the doctors' directives, stripping her clothes off to place them in labeled bags and then laying down on the exam table. Olivia reached out a hand and Alex took hold of it, clinging to it as the nurse examined and photographed her body.

The nurse was professional and as gentle as she could be, but the last thing Alex wanted was their hands and eyes all over her body, a body that had been so brutally violated barely hours earlier. It was taking all her strength not to pull away or fight them off as she'd tried so desperately to fight her attacker off.

Finally, when they were finished, she was able to force a single sentence through her lips, to ask the question she desperately needed answered. "Nurse, is my baby okay?"

Once she heard the words through Alex's lips, Olivia couldn't believe she hadn't noticed. The cut of Alex's jacket had minimized the appearance of her swollen, rounded abdomen, but in the hospital gown, it was plainly visible. It also, she thought, explained why Bobby Goren had been so interested in her sons.

"Your baby seems to be doing fine," the nurse confirmed. "But if you'd like, I can send an ultrasound tech in here to make sure."

"Yes," she managed, "thank you."

The tech was in the room in minutes and quickly confirmed what the nurse had suspected. "Your baby's doing fine." She turned the screen so Alex could see the image of the developing baby.

"Thank you." Alex looked as though she might cry, and Olivia didn't blame her. It probably felt like the first light she'd seen since the start of this ordeal.

xxxxxxxxx

The brunette woman was waiting for Amaro when he stepped out of his car. "You Barek?" he asked, despite his very strong suspicion that he already knew the answer.

"Yeah." She gestured to Amaro to follow her. "Scene's over here."

"Can you walk me through what happened?"

"I don't know exactly. I got here after it was over. But I'll show you what I've found."

"Fair enough," he agreed.

Barek stopped at a spot a few yards from a stairwell door. "I found her service weapon here," she began. "I picked it up before I knew what had happened - at the time, my primary concern was that there was an unsecured weapon lying out in the open. Here." She pulled a glove from her pocket, reached into her jacket, and lifted out the gun. Amaro quickly caught on and held out a bag so she could slide the weapon into it. "I picked it up bare-handed," she admitted, "so you'll have to take exclusionary prints from me, but maybe there's something else on it that will help."

As Amaro carefully stowed the evidence bag, Barek kept talking. "Now, the actual attack happened in this stairwell here." She pulled the door open with her gloved hand, bracing it open with her shoulder. "Look at the floor here."

He looked where she was pointing. "Scuff marks."

"Yeah. Starting about a yard from the doorway and leading back into the stairwell, stopping here, a few feet from the wall."

"So he drags her in here, and then - there's blood here," he noticed, pointing to a spot on the wall.

Barek nodded. "It looked like she was bleeding from a scrape right around her hairline. But she's about the same height as I am."

"And that spot is about an inch over your head," Amaro realized. "So he - he must have lifted her clear off the ground before he slammed her head into that wall. And - are those fibers stuck to the wall?"

"Looks like it." She examined them for a moment. "They match the coat she was wearing, and there are more scuff marks, all in this small area. I'd say he had her pinned against the wall - she struggled against him but couldn't get away - oh, God." She broke off abruptly, drawing a deep breath in an attempt to stop herself from crying as she wanted to. "I'm sorry."

"This your first time dealing with something like this?" Amaro asked sympathetically.

"No," she mumbled, embarrassed. "That's what makes this so bad. I did three years as a crime scene tech. It's - this isn't just a case to me, no matter how much I wish it was. This is my friend's blood on the wall. She struggled here, fought like hell while some sadistic monster attacked her."

Amaro was nodding along as she spoke. "Finish walking me through this and then you can go, I'll wait for CSU." He didn't want to force her to stay in this place, not after seeing how much this was affecting her.

"Thank you."

"And Barek?"

"Yeah?"

"You might want to find someone you can talk to."

"Me? I'm not the one who was -" she choked again, struggling not to cry.

"I know," Amaro replied gently, "but look at yourself. You're barely holding it together." He gently laid a hand on her shoulder. "Secondary victims are common in these kinds of cases; it's normal to be affected when something bad happens to someone you care about. The best thing you can do for her right now is to take care of yourself; it'll put you in a better position to help her."

"Okay," she whispered. "Thank you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise, the violence isn't gratuitous, it's an important part of the story's plot (which probably answers a question I left open-ended in this chapter). As for Barek having been a CSU tech, that's entirely my own invention as the character in CI didn't have much of a backstory at all, and she did have a skill for reading a scene.
> 
> This chapter references the CI episode Brother's Keeper.


	6. Aftermath

"Where's the Lieutenant?" Amaro asked his partner in an undertone as she walked into the squad room.

"Bathroom," Olivia replied, knowing he meant Alex. "She said she felt sick. What is it?" She recognized the look on his face, and it heralded trouble.

He gestured for her to follow him out into the hallway. "We may have a small problem," he told her once they were out of the squad room. "The crime scene - I could smell the same lotion we found on the Sebastian victims all over it."

"I know." Olivia had clearly smelled it on Alex when she was in the car. "You thinking it's more than a coincidence?"

"That's not the problem I meant," he admitted. "I was thinking the same thing, but it doesn't make sense. It doesn't match the MO. So I - I asked Goren to take a look at the file. I mean, he would know if anyone would, right? But he just - he just freaked out. I can't explain -"

"Oh, my God," Olivia said softly. Seeing the look on her partner's face, she quickly rushed to reassure him. "It's not you, Nick. This is my fault, I got so caught up in dealing with this that I forgot he'd be here."

"What's going on?"

"Later," she promised quickly. "Where is he?"

"Pacing the conference room, last I saw. He damn near put his fist through the wall, too. Whatever this is, it's really getting to him."

The conference room door was open when Olivia got there and the room was empty. Almost before she could even ask herself where she might have gone, her mind provided a likely answer, and she turned and walked towards the bathrooms.

Sure enough, she found him there, leaning against the wall next to the women's bathroom door, looking vaguely sick himself. He turned his head at the sound of her footsteps, and she saw the unshed tears glimmering in his eyes.

Before either of them had the chance to speak, the bathroom door creaked open and Alex emerged, looking pale but determined. She started to walk towards Olivia but her steps faltered when she saw who else was standing there.

All of a sudden, it was as though she had forgotten how to breathe. She should have realized Bobby would be here, she knew. She'd picked him up enough times. But she hadn't been able to think much past what was happening with her own body. She looked from him to Olivia in a panic. _What do I do now?_ How could she tell him?

Another look into Bobby's eyes provided the answer. She could see the deep lines of concern in his face and the tears he wouldn't let fall. _He knows. How does he know?_ In the next moment, as he opened his arms to her, she decided it didn't matter. She closed the small distance between them, stepping into his outstretched arms, and he wrapped her up in a warm embrace.

"I'm here, Alex," he whispered into her hair. "It's okay. You're safe now."

Alex realized suddenly that she was crying, sobbing into Bobby's broad chest. She hadn't been aware of when she'd started and now she couldn't stop. "Bobby," she gasped, "Bobby, I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he soothed, and they both knew he was talking about more than the crying. "It isn't your fault."

Olivia turned to give the pair a little privacy, only to see that a small crowd had formed nearby, watching in astonishment as the blonde Lieutenant cried in her former partner's arms. She immediately felt a surge of anger on her friend's behalf. It was bad enough what she'd had to go through without the humiliation of having her emotional state become a public spectacle.

She turned a glare on the assembled crowd. "Don't you guys have work to do?"

A series of incomprehensible mumbles and averted eyes met her question.

"Then get to it," she snapped. Since Murphy had taken command, she had rarely used the power that came with her Sergeant's rank, but this situation seemed to warrant it. " _Now_."

The crowd quickly scattered; one advantage of making scarce use of that power was that it packed a serious punch when she did choose to use it. Olivia turned back to Alex, who had stopped sobbing and was forcing a thin layer of composure back on herself as she stepped back from Bobby.

"I'm ready," Alex said, unprompted.

"You sure?" Olivia asked gently.

Alex nodded. "Let's - let's just get this over with."

Olivia walked the blonde to the interview room, aware the entire time of Bobby walking close behind them. She stopped him gently when they reached the door. "I think it might be better if I talk to Alex alone."

"Go on," Alex said when he hesitated. "I'll be okay."

She sounded less than convinced, and Olivia could see the redoubled concern in Bobby's eyes, but he did step back, allowing Alex and Olivia to proceed into the room alone.

Olivia gestured for Alex to take a seat on the couch. "Can I get you anything? Coffee?"

"No, thank you," Alex replied softly. "I really just want to be done with this."

"Okay." Olivia took a seat in a chair across from the blonde. "So...tell me what happened in the garage."

xxxxxxxxx

It was only after Bobby had put the car into park that he got a good look at the woman sitting next to him, and he instantly realized there was a serious problem. She had been tense and on edge throughout the drive, but now she was sitting straight up, stiff as a board, and her eyes were huge in her pale face.

"Alex?"

Only silence answered him, but he could see that her gaze was darting around, examining every inch of the structure that was perceptible from her seat, and that was the only answer he needed. "Oh, Alex," he whispered, mentally kicking himself for his mistake. How could he have possibly thought that he could expect her to walk through a parking garage as though it was any other day when she'd been violently assaulted in one just hours earlier? "Alex, I'm so sorry. I'll pull the car around front so you can get out -"

"No!" she said so forcefully that he was momentarily taken aback. And even through everything that was swirling around in her mind, she noticed. "I'm sorry," she added quickly.

"Don't be," he insisted. "What do you need, Alex?"

"You're - you're right," she said softly, staring at the dashboard. "This garage - just being in it is making me feel like I can't breathe. But just the idea of being alone right now is even worse." He heard the crack in her voice and knew that she was on the verge of tears. "If I hadn't been alone in the first place, maybe none of this would've happened." She turned to him, and the vulnerable, terrified look in her eyes nearly ripped his heart out. "Just - just stick with me and let's get through here as fast as we can, okay?"

"Of course."

He kept a hand on her shoulder as they walked, just to remind her that he was there, and consequentially he knew barely a third of the way through that she was in trouble.

He gently tapped the shoulder his hand was resting on. "Alex..." Their eyes met, and he knew she knew what he was thinking. "Can I?"

Her gaze dropped to the ground and he could see her cheeks redden, embarrassed that it had come to this, but she nodded. "Okay."

He gently but quickly gathered her tiny body up in his arms. He caught a brief glimpse of her face, eyes closed tight, before she buried her head in his chest, clinging to his jacket as he carried her.

He set her down once they were clear of the garage, standing close by in case her shaky legs couldn't hold her weight. But it appeared he'd underestimated her rather significantly. She did stumble, but before he could even offer help, she steadied herself against the wall and then began to walk resolutely towards the elevators.

Bobby followed, more concerned than reassured by Alex's reaction. _The explosion is going to come soon._ He knew that her tears in the squad room had only been scratching the surface.

xxxxxxxxx

Bobby's heart broke all over again when he saw Alex step out of the bathroom, clad in a pair of gym shorts and one of his shirts. The outfit covered a lot less of her than the hospital sweats had, and he could clearly see several of the bruises her assailant had left on her body.

"Are you hungry?" he asked softly. "I could make something, or order in..."

"Thanks, but it's okay. I feel more sick than hungry - what else is new?" She tried to force a light tone into her voice, but it only took one look at him to know he wasn't fooled. "Bobby..."

"It's okay, Alex," he said gently. "I'm here for you. You don't have to pretend anything with me."

"I hate this," she whispered. "I really, really hate this."

"I know." One of the first things he had learned about his now-former partner was that she hated losing control, especially of herself. He reached out for her, and she let him take her in his arms, curling up willingly in his lap. "But I'm here...I love you...if you need to...whatever you need to do...it's okay."

"How - how can this be happening?" she asked.

"I don't know," he admitted, feeling helpless. He sensed it was a feeling he'd have to get used to if he was going to help Alex at all.

xxxxxxxxx

Olivia had to blink forcefully to make sure she wasn't seeing things. But no, Bobby Goren really was standing there in the squad room. "I didn't expect you back so soon. We would've made arrangements for you to take some time."

"I know," he assured her. "But...but Alex insisted on going to work today. I'm not doing her or myself any good sitting around my own apartment all day." He met her eyes squarely. "I don't care if I'm technically too close. I want to work this."

Olivia glanced around her colleagues, but no one seemed to be objecting. She even noticed that Nick was nodding slightly. It made sense; he'd been in a similar position a few months earlier when they'd learned about what had happened to Rollins. "Okay," she said finally.

The silence was broken by a chime on Olivia's phone. She glanced at it and then back up at her assembled colleagues. "Lab report came in. DNA from the rape kit matches the DNA found at all the Sebastian murders."

"This doesn't make sense," Nick said immediately. "The DNA is the same, but the MO isn't even close. Sebastian's never done an attack like the one on Eames."

Goren suddenly flinched as if he'd been struck. "We - we assumed he hasn't because one was never reported. But I think - I think he has. Just one, in the middle of his last spree. That missing piece I couldn't quite get -" he broke off abruptly. "I need to talk to Declan. And I need one of you to come with me."

"I'll go," Olivia offered. "But why do you need anyone?"

He met her eyes with such an intensity that it almost scared her. "Because I don't trust myself around him right now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No episode references in this chapter except the generic one for Blind Spot - by the way, if you want a hint as to what Goren just realized, I might suggest watching the final scene in that episode. I took my ideas for this part of the arc from a comment he makes in that scene. For anyone who missed it, the reference to what happened to Rollins is a call-back to the previous story in this series, Unreasonable Doubt.


	7. The Missing Piece

"Bobby!"

Goren stepped back, keeping a distance between himself and his former mentor. "I need your help," he said flatly.

"Yes, yes," Gage said excitedly. "I heard Sebastian had resurfaced. She told me." He nodded towards Olivia, who was hanging back near the door. "So they brought you in on it? I guess it's the next best thing if I can't be there."

"Declan," he interrupted forcefully, "what happened to Rebecca?"

That seemed to bring him up short. "Why do you want to know about my wife?"

"You know why," Goren parried easily.

"Sebastian," Gage replied. "So you know."

"I can guess. But tell me anyway. I need the details"

"She came home one day, two months after the third Sebastian victim, bruised and bloody and crying. As soon as I smelled the Pierre LaRitz on her, I knew he had to be involved. I thought at first that she'd somehow managed to get away from him, but no. She told me clearly that he let her go."

"You didn't report it?" Goren asked, and Olivia could hear the anger just below the calm surface of his words. "You didn't even put it in the file?"

"Rebecca said she wouldn't cooperate with an investigation. What was the point anyway? I knew who we were looking for."

"It's an anomaly in the pattern," Goren objected. "You taught me that those are sometimes the most important data points."

"It is, it is!" Gage said excitedly. "But I knew about it, and I was the one doing the profiling. I could question Rebecca myself, get all the information I needed."

"You questioned her?" he said incredulously.

"Of course!" Gage seemed surprised that the younger man would even ask. "As you said, her attack was a vital part of the profile."

Goren exchanged a look with Olivia, who looked as horrified as he felt, before turning back to Gage. "What did she tell you?" He had to get the details before he worried about Gage's personal failings.

"She was taking a shortcut through an alley when she was hit from behind and knocked down. He shoved her face in the dirt, climbed on top of her, and raped her." Just the nonchalant way in which Gage described his wife's assault confirmed Goren's low opinion of him. How had he missed all of this? "Then he told her that he could have killed or kidnapped her, but he wanted her to give me a message."

Again, Goren glanced at Olivia, who nodded, flipping her notebook open. He turned back to Gage. "The message?"

"'You can't trap a man between the pages of a book. I was trained by the best; your husband thinks he knows everything about a world he's too busy reading to see.' Then he got up and left her lying there."

"What happened to your wife?" Olivia asked softly. She hadn't intended to be part of this conversation, but it was clear that Rebecca Gage had probably never recieved the support she needed. Even if hearing it from her wouldn't make much of a difference in the investigation, Olivia wanted to get her help, even if it would come years too late.

"She's dead," Gage said rather indifferently. "Killed herself six months later." He shook his head. "It was embarrassing, really. She just couldn't handle it." He looked at his former protegee. "Okay, I admit, that's part of the reason I never told you. I didn't want the world to know she just went to pieces over a little thing like that."

Olivia noticed the shift in Goren's posture and knew that Gage had just pushed the younger man past his tipping point. "You son of a bitch," he whispered coldly. "You have no idea what you've done, keeping this from me. If you'd done it to - to protect her, I'd understand - I'd be angry, but I'd understand. But being embarrassed that your wife wasn't bouncing back from being raped... _that's not the way it works_ , Declan! And as for Rebecca's suicide - you can't just blame her for that. You can't even put all the blame on Sebastian. It was you too, Declan. Maybe she would've been able to get through it if you'd supported her instead of treating her like a point on a data chart." He looked back to Olivia. "Come on, Detective. Let's get out of here."

"Bobby -" Gage called after him.

"No," he said without turning around. "When you went in here, I never wanted to see you again. I wouldn't have come now if I hadn't needed that information. I won't be coming back."

xxxxxxxxx

"Wow," Olivia said softly as she and Bobby got back into the car. "I'm usually reluctant to blame anyone besides a rapist for a victim's suicide, but in this case, I have to agree with you. There's no way his attitude didn't have some kind of impact on his wife after the rape."

"I missed it when I worked with him," Bobby said softly. "He's a textbook sociopath - zero empathy, no ability to care for anyone but himself. I guess I was sort of an exception, but even then, I think it was more that he wanted to create a disciple than that he actually cared about me. Do you - do you know what he was arrested for?"

"He - he solicited a serial killer to murder someone and then murdered the serial killer, right? Rollins looked up his file when we first caught this case."

"That's the - the abridged version, yes. What you wouldn't have had a reason to notice then, since you didn't know me yet, was that both of the victims were connected to me. The first victim, the one whose murder he solicited, was my older brother."

"My God, I'm sorry. Why -"

"Because he doesn't get it. My brother was - my brother was always in and out of trouble, I'm not denying that. But losing him devastated me all the same. Gage didn't get it. Everything to him is a cost-benefit analysis. As far as he could see it, Frank was dead weight and I could be more productive without him. The idea that I could love him in spite of everything just didn't compute."

"And the serial killer? Nicole Wallace, right?"

"Yes. She and I had sparred on more than one occasion - she not only evaded the justice system, she managed to squirm out several times after she was caught, even got a walk from a jury once. Gage talked her into killing Frank by framing it as revenge against me - at least that motive makes sense from the average point of view, killing my brother to spite me. Then he cornered and killed her." He sighed loudly. "I'm - I'm not denying that humanity is probably better off for not having Nicole Wallace at large, but I wanted to do it the legal way. I might've thought a few times that I wanted her dead, but I never wanted blood on my hands, not even the blood of someone like her. Another thing Gage wasn't able to understand. When I got him in the box, he eventually confessed, and he told me I was - I was free. Even when I was staring him in the face, he couldn't see how much he'd hurt me."

"I'm sorry about your brother," Olivia offered after a few moments of silence. "I - I kind of know where you're coming from, I think. Simon - my own brother - he isn't as bad as it sounds like your brother was, but he's got his problems; more than once, he's gotten in over his head and then run to me to try and get him out of trouble. But even after all that, I can't imagine losing him."

Bobby was nodding. "I was constantly frustrated with Frank - mad at him - we fought the day before he died - but that doesn't mean I didn't still care. I think - I think most people would be able to get that on some level, in the same way most people would realize that a woman who'd been violently raped would need support from her husband." He couldn't keep his voice from cracking.

"How is Alex?" Olivia asked gently. It didn't take a massive leap of logic to figure out where his mind had gone.

"She's - she's trying to be okay, if that makes any sense."

Olivia nodded. "I've been doing this a long time. I know what you mean."

"I'm worried about her. I've known her a long time, and I know she's not as okay as she'd like me to think. She's barely eaten anything since it happened, which would be bad enough under normal circumstances, but with the pregnancy on top of everything -" he stopped abruptly. "Damn it, I should've known he'd try something!"

"How could you?" Olivia replied gently. "This isn't your fault. How could you have known?"

"It was there the whole time," he ground out, frustration in every syllable. "Rebecca's rape - that was the piece that's been just out of reach for me since I first picked up the file on this case."

"What?" Olivia asked, momentarily startled. "How?"

"Like I thought, it was in the copycat case that led you to me. What isn't in the file is Jo's motive for copycatting Sebastian."

"I think I can guess," Olivia said wryly. "Dr. Gage was as bad a father as he was a husband?"

"In a nutshell. He never really paid attention to her, and after Rebecca's suicide, she didn't even have a second parent to balance that out. Add to that him thinking it was okay to expose a teenage girl to the kind of violent imagery he ran across in his work - anyway, she heard he was in town for a conference, and so she decided to bring Sebastian back and make her roommate one of the victims so that he would pay attention to her. It almost worked."

"Almost?" Olivia queried.

"It might've, if it hadn't happened to be Major Case who caught the murder. Remember, Gage was my mentor, back before I realized what kind of person he really was. As soon as I was in the picture, she got shoved to the back burner all over again. So she decided to break us apart the only way she knew how. She kidnapped Alex and framed him." He shuddered a little, remembering that day.

"Alex mentioned something about that to me once," Olivia commented.

"Really?" He sounded surprised now. "She must really trust you. It's not something she talks about with just anyone."

"You don't watch the news much, do you?"

"If there's one thing I've learned in my years on the force, it's that the news skews absolutely everything for the most sensational story possible. So no, I don't usually watch the news."

She didn't volunteer more details, and he didn't push, instead turning back to the earlier path of the conversation. "At the time, it was all kind of a blur. I remember going to Declan, asking for his help. I remember when we found her phone on him - I'll give Jo this much, the frame job worked. Alex was one of the most important people in my life, even then, and I think part of me knew by that point that Declan didn't operate on the same rules as the rest of us. But in hindsight, he wasn't surprised for a second. Even though Eames' kidnapping didn't fit Sebastian's usual mode of snatching his victims, he wasn't even surprised, and he didn't see that as a possible clue that we weren't dealing with the real thing."

"Because of Rebecca," Olivia surmised. "He knew Sebastian had a habit of targeting the women who were close to the primaries on his case."

"I should've realized -"

"That's a big leap of logic, Bobby," she said gently. "It all makes sense in hindsight because we have all the pieces now, but the clues were pretty thin before yesterday."

"Maybe if I'd been paying more attention to the clues, yesterday wouldn't have happened!" he all but shouted, but Olivia could hear the pain just under the surface. "And Gage - damn it, it's bad enough that he treats what happened to Rebecca like the family embarrassment, but he had to know when you told him that Sebastian was back that the same thing could happen again. Even if he didn't know I was working this one, Sebastian could've targeted someone connected to anyone on the case. Gage put dozens of people in danger by withholding this information, and he still doesn't see it."

"I'll agree with you on the second part," she replied, "but based on the information you had, you couldn't have been expected to figure this out on your own. Like I said, it's a big leap of logic based on what we had, and we both know that if you _had_ known, you would've moved heaven and earth to protect her - to protect anyone who Sebastian could conceivably have targeted. This isn't your fault."

"But if I -"

"Don't," she interrupted. "The world is full of what-ifs, and twice as much after a crisis like this." Even though no one would have ever said it in front of her, she knew that everyone around her had been wondering the same things after her ordeal with William Lewis, thinking of everything they could have done differently. "It doesn't help."

He nodded a little, more in acknowledgment of hearing her statement than agreement with it. They rode the rest of the way back to the squad room in silence.

xxxxxxxxx

"Goren," Fin offered, "you don't have to be here for this."

The former detective looked up slowly, his face hard with determination. "Yes," he replied, "I do. I appreciate your concern, but this is what I do. I catch perps by studying them down to the last detail. If I'm going to catch this - this piece of garbage, I need it all. No matter how much it hurts," he added so softly they had to strain to hear him.

"So we have a pretty detailed account of what went down yesterday," Nick said, thankfully diverting the focus away from Bobby. "I take it we don't have that on Rebecca Gage?"

"No." Olivia shook her head. "Not even close. Just some very basic details."

"Then I think we should go through the details from Eames' statement - sorry," he added to Goren, who just shook his head, silently telling Nick not to worry about it. "Run that down, compare that with anything we know or can guess from what we know about Rebecca. See what that gives us."

"Right." Goren nodded.

"Okay," Nick said, drawing a line down the middle of the board and writing _1987_ on one side and _2014_ on the other, "so Eames was ambushed in a parking garage, Rebecca -"

"An alley," Olivia supplied. "Both isolated locations. But there's something else. The ambush itself was different. With Rebecca, he just knocked her down and climbed on top of her. But Eames -"

"He used the door to hit her, pulled her into the stairwell, threw her up against the wall," Rollins supplied. "You're right. It's different."

"Think the son of a bitch is escalating?" Fin asked grimly.

"Not escalating," Goren said quietly. " _Adapting_. Rebecca Gage was a housewife. She might've tried to fight him off, but she wouldn't have had any training in self-defense or anything like that. Knocking her down and getting on top of her was all he needed to do."

"But Eames is a cop," Nick said, catching on. "She's armed and has years of training, including self-defense training. If he'd tried to take her down the way he did Rebecca, she would have fought him, and there's a decent chance she would've won. He had to change his MO to give himself the upper hand. He hits her with the door, that's enough to disorient her for a second. He wraps his arms around her, that limits her range of motion. He keeps her upright because it limits her options - if she was on the ground, she could try to crawl or roll away."

"And when he - when he hit her head against the wall," Goren added, struggling to keep his voice level, "it was the same thing. He needed both hands to keep her under control most of the time, but he needed at least one hand to -" He couldn't force the end of that sentence through his lips, so he let it just fall into silence. "He hit her head against the wall to stun her so she couldn't take advantage when he took one of his hands away."

"The one thing I don't quite get is why he went to all the trouble," Rollins said softly. "By Eames' statement, he got her service piece pretty early in the struggle. That's a powerful tool to have against a victim." She couldn't stop the shiver that ran through her body; being raped at gunpoint was one thing she'd never be able to forget. "But instead, he throws it away and keeps fighting her hand-to-hand."

Nick stepped away from the board for a moment to squeeze her shoulder as Goren considered this. "Too easy," the large man said finally. "He didn't want her compliant, not even compliant by force. He wanted her to struggle against him."

"And throwing her down the stairs?" Fin asked. "If Rebecca was in an alley, there wasn't even a flight of stairs to push her down."

"Same thing," Goren confirmed tightly, visibly on the edge of losing his control. "He wanted her to live, just like he wanted Rebecca to live, but if he'd been following Alex, he had to know how tough she is. There's a chance she could've stopped him somehow, or called for backup fast enough to catch him. Not to mention there's no question she would've used the chance to get a look at him so she could identify him later. By pushing her down the stairs, he bought himself a clean getaway."

"He wanted her to live to give you a message," Nick said softly, trying not to upset Goren any more than he already was. He of all people knew the pain and rage that had to be running through the former detective. "Did he give Rebecca one too?"

"Yes." Olivia flipped her notebook open, sparing Goren the need to answer. "'You can't trap a man between the pages of a book. I was trained by the best; your husband thinks he knows everything about a world he's too busy reading to see.'"

Nick quickly wrote that on the board. "And the message to Eames was what?"

"'He was trained by the best, but that was decades ago. I wonder, does he retain enough skills to catch me now? Or has he gotten soft in the years gone by?" Fin supplied. "She said it was pretty clear that Sebastian was talking about Goren."

Nick stared at the statements for a few moments. "Look at this," he said finally. "This phrase: trained by the best. It has to mean something. If we could figure out what, maybe it could give us some kind of direction."

"Academic snobbery?" Fin suggested. "A school he went to, maybe?"

Nick was shaking his head. "I don't think so. Look at the way he talks about Gage's books; he doesn't seem to value academics or formal education at all."

"Besides," Goren added, "that doesn't fit. These statements - he sees a connection between me and him, something Gage doesn't have. If it were academics, it would be the other way around. I never even went to college. Gage has multiple post-graduate degrees."

"So who's he talking about?" Rollins asked. "The police department?"

"Or the military," Nick said suddenly. "The only way to qualify for the NYPD without going to college is to serve in the US Armed Forces, so -"

"Yeah." Goren nodded. "I signed up the day I turned eighteen, served ten years before I joined the department."

"Which puts you leaving the service - when?" Olivia asked.

"Eighty-nine. Which Sebastian could describe as 'decades ago'."

"So we're saying this guy is military," Nick said slowly. "But then his DNA should be in the system. We ran the Sebastian DNA against every database we have."

"Then he's ex-military," Goren said suddenly, the look in his eyes suggesting that he was finally fitting the pieces together. "The army started taking DNA in 1991, but they didn't take it from everyone immediately. They took it from members when they enlisted, re-enlisted, or were deployed. Now, in 2014, that means that everyone who's in the service has their DNA on file, but there were a few years in there where someone who was enlisted before 91 and serving stateside wouldn't have had their DNA taken yet. That's where we need to start looking. The military."

"That's a wide net," Olivia said a little skeptically. "How do we even start to look for a single suspect in a database that big?"

"We find things we can use to narrow it down. Can I?" He pointed to the board, and everyone in the room nodded. Nick handed him the marker and stepped aside. "Okay, so what do we know about Sebastian, or what can we reasonably infer, that might start ruling people out?"

"His DNA's not in the system," Rollins offered. "That rules out anyone whose DNA _was_ collected."

"Good." Goren wrote _DNA not collected_ on the board. "We also know he was in the army by 1987, based on what he told Rebecca." He wrote this in under the first fact. "Probably had already completed training by the time Rebecca was raped in September of 1987, but that's not definitive." He wrote _Training completed before 9/87?_ before turning back to the room.

"Considering how much time he had between victims, I doubt he was picking them at random," Olivia added. "It's pretty clear he stalked Alex and Rebecca; he probably hunted for his victims, picked specific women to target, and then stalked them to learn their routines. He had to be hunting close to home, otherwise someone would've noticed him constantly disappearing, especially considering he was in the service. So he had to be stationed no more than a few hours from each of the kill sites at the times the victims were murdered. Same for the assault on Rebecca."

Goren was nodding now. "So now we need to contact the military, convince them to work with us. They need to run all of this through their database and get us a list of anyone who fits all of these points, including flagging anyone with any sort of violent record."

"You make it sound so easy," Olivia said wryly. "Getting the US Army to play ball is a lot easier said than done."

"Let me give it a shot," Nick offered. "Maria - my ex-wife - is still working for them."

"You think your ex-wife's going to help you?" Fin said wryly.

"We can still talk to each other," he replied evenly. "Anyway, I'm not asking her to go against protocol, just to expedite this so that we can get the information before Sebastian's due to strike again. I know Maria; she'll help us once I explain what's at stake."

"Do it," Olivia said quickly. "I'll loop Murphy in when he gets back from his meeting. In the meantime, we'll keep catching cases on the normal rotation until we get those records."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, well, this took longer than I expected, but this chapter involved a lot of research (what's required to join the NYPD, when the military started collecting DNA and what the procedure was) that slowed things down considerably. The flip side is, you know that all of that is true to real life.
> 
> The idea about Rebecca Gage (whose first name I made up, if anyone was wondering) really did come from a couple of lines at the end of Blind Spot, where Goren asks Jo "how old were you when your mother -?" and Jo replies "Killed herself? Seven." If the suicide was in 1987 or early 1988, that would make Jo twenty-six at the time of Blind Spot, which seemed plausible. I just got this idea in my head that somehow the mother's suicide was related to Sebastian, and that ended up shaping a large portion of this story.
> 
> This chapter references the Criminal Intent episode Frame and the SVU episodes Florida and Child's Welfare, as well as the general William Lewis arc. As I've mentioned before, I'm deliberately disregarding the last few minutes of Thought Criminal, including the part where Maria mentions moving to California (since that really only existed in the episode as a trigger for Nick's beating of the cameraman, which didn't happen in this series' timeline). So, Maria is still in DC.


	8. The Storm

Bobby had known when he'd seen the car parked in front of the building that he wouldn't be alone in his apartment, a knowledge that was only confirmed when he saw her bag sitting on the kitchen table. "Alex?" he called out softly, not wanting to wake her if she was sleeping.

When he didn't get a reply, he checked the bedroom. It was empty, but the clothes she'd been wearing that morning were in a pile on the floor. In the next moment, he realized he could hear the sound of water running in the bathroom.

There was no logical reason for her to be showering after work, not when she'd showered that morning and had likely spent most of her day behind a desk. Concern flooded him immediately, becoming even more pronounced when he saw the steam that was coming out from under the bathroom door. He tapped on it gently. "Alex?"

"Bobby?" she called back.

"Can I come in?" Even under normal circumstances, he would have asked. The last thing he'd ever want would be to make her uncomfortable. And now, after everything she'd been through, the idea of invading her privacy was repulsive to him on every level.

"Okay," she said softly.

He pushed the door open and was immediately hit by a cloud of steam. As it cleared, he was able to make out Alex's frame. She was sitting on the floor of the tub as the shower rained down over her, her skin red from the hot water, and he instantly ran to her side. "Alex, what are you doing?"

"I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I thought I could shower and be done before you got home."

"Alex -" That was so far beside the point that he didn't even know where to start. It didn't help that as she sat there, he was getting his first look at the deep bruising across her back that Sebastian had left when he'd pinned her against the wall. Anger and grief welled up in him all over again.

She looked up at him finally, and her red eyes told him that the dampness on her cheeks wasn't just from the shower. "I'm sorry," she said again.

"Shh, don't apologize," he said gently. "This isn't your fault."

"I can't get him off me," she whispered, finally answering his question. "I've scrubbed and scrubbed, but I can still smell him all over me - feel him on my body -" she choked. "I can't get rid of him. Oh, God, I can't get rid of him."

Then her shoulders hitched and she began sobbing in earnest. The breakdown she'd been fighting off since she'd come to at the bottom of the garage stairs refused to be held at bay any longer. Her composure slipped away as quickly and completely as if it had been melted away by the hot spray from the showerhead.

And then Bobby was there. Fully clothed right down to his shoes, Bobby climbed into the tub with her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close. "Oh, sweetheart," he whispered. "I've got you now. I've got you now. You're safe." He whispered the words over and over again as he held her tightly against him, just letting her tears fall as the shower rained down on both of them.

"I'm sorry," she whispered when her tears were spent and she felt like she was starting to regain control of herself. "Now you're all wet."

"Don't worry about it." He pressed his lips gently to her forehead. "I don't care, Alex. I just want to help you any way I can." He kissed her forehead again. "Will you let me help you?"

She looked up at him, the fear and vulnerability in her eyes breaking his heart all over again. "How?"

Bobby reached for her washcloth. "Let me try to wash him off you," he suggested. "Maybe it'll help if someone else does it."

She hesitated for a moment, but even through all of this, Bobby's touch had been only comforting. "Okay."

He read her fears as clearly as if she'd spoken them aloud. "I only want to help you," he reiterated. "If anything hurts, if it scares you, you just tell me and I'll stop. I promise."

He brought the washcloth up to her face, gently wiping away what remained of her tear tracks, and then slowly began to work his way down. "Is this okay?"

"Yes," she whispered. As improbable as it was, it seemed to be working. His delicate touches seemed to wash away the lingering feel of her attacker on her skin better than all her scrubbing had done. A small sigh escaped her lips as he worked, and a little of the tension ebbed from her body. "Thank you."

xxxxxxxxx

By the time Bobby had finished changing out of his wet clothes, Alex was already lying on her back on the bed, her eyes almost closed. He sat down slowly, careful to avoid doing anything that might startle her. "Alex?"

She opened her eyes a little. "Yeah?"

"Have you eaten?"

"Not hungry," she mumbled, letting her eyes close again. "Just tired."

"I know, sweetheart," he replied gently. "I know you're tired, but try to stay awake for a little bit, okay?" Her eyes fluttered back open, and he continued. "I know you don't feel hungry right now, but you didn't eat last night, you barely touched your breakfast, and I'm going to guess you didn't have lunch." The look on her face was all the confirmation he needed. "You need to eat, Alex. You can't do this to yourself, especially not now." He ran his fingers gently across her rounded abdomen. "You're already having trouble gaining enough weight because you've been so sick."

Alex looked as though she was about to respond, but then she gasped suddenly, wide awake in an instant.

"What?" Bobby asked, feeling his concern levels spike again. But then he felt it too, an unmistakable flutter under his hand. "The baby's kicking."

"Yeah," she whispered, and then for the briefest of moments a smile crossed her lips. It was tiny, and it was gone almost before he registered it, but it was a smile. But then he saw her face fall. "This isn't going to fix everything, Bobby."

"I know," he assured her, unable to stop himself from thinking of Gage, puttering on as if nothing had changed while his wife suffered under the same roof. _How could anyone be so oblivious to a person they claim to love?_ "I'm not expecting it to. I know there's no magic fix for what happened to you, as much as I wish there was. And I'll be here for you the whole way. I promise you that." He laid a very light kiss on her lips. "I know you mean it when you say you don't feel hungry. But your body still needs food. The baby needs food."

"Okay," she said finally. "I'll try."

xxxxxxxxx

Bobby's cooking was as good as ever, but to Alex, everything tasted like sawdust. She managed to force down about half of the plate of scrambled eggs he'd made for her before her stomach threatened to rebel. "I'm sorry," she mumbled, pushing the plate away. "I really can't eat any more. I'll get sick."

"It's okay," he soothed. "At least you've got something in your system now. I'm not going to ask you to do more than you're able to, I never would."

"Can we go to bed now?" she asked softly. "I know it's early but I'm just so tired."

"I know you are." He quickly placed the dishes in the sink and then walked with her to the bedroom.

She laid back quickly, but after a few moments, she looked over at him. "I'm scared, Bobby. I don't want to go back there."

Tears jumped to his eyes. "Oh, Alex." He reached out for her, and she eagerly allowed him to gather her up in his arms. There was nothing else he could say. He could hold and comfort her while she slept, but he couldn't stop the direction her unconscious mind would take her dreams.

She buried her head in his chest. "It hurts," she admitted. "It hurts so much."

"I know it does." He rubbed her back gently.

"I'm sorry," she whispered into his shoulder. "I'm sorry for all of this."

"I keep telling you, sweetheart. You have nothing to apologize for."

"I should've been paying attention," she whispered. "If I'd just been paying a little more attention - if I'd gone straight back to the office instead of stopping - none of this would've happened. Instead, I'm a complete wreck and I know I'm hurting you too."

"Alex!" The shocked, horrified exclamation slipped from his lips before he could stop it. "Alex, no," he continued more softly. "No, sweetheart. This isn't your fault. None of this is your fault." He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "And you're not a wreck."

"What do you call my meltdown in the shower?" she retorted bitterly.

"Understandable," he responded evenly. "You said it yourself. You're really hurting right now; that's bound to come out sometime, and that's not a bad thing. It's better for it to come out than for you to hold all that hurt inside. You're safe here, Alex. If you need to cry, even if you need to fall apart for a little while, it's okay. I'll be here for you."

"It's hurting you," she protested weakly.

"It hurts me that this happened," he corrected gently. "I love you, Alex, so much. Of course it hurts me that you're hurting. That doesn't make it your fault, and that doesn't mean I don't want to be here for you." He stroked her cheek gently. "Go to sleep, Alex. I'll be right here."

xxxxxxxxx

"Hey, Eames!"

She looked up sharply, just barely able to control the visible startle reaction. "Yeah?"

"Sorry to bother you, but upstairs says you need to move your car. Something about leaving that spot open for visiting brass." He shrugged. "I still don't know why you didn't just park in the garage to begin with. That's what those permits are for, you know."

"Thank you," she said a little shortly. "I'll take care of it."

The officer withdrew, looking a little bewildered, and Alex knew why. She had never been one to let her rank or command position drive a wedge between her and the people she supervised; she'd made it clear from day one that while she knew there would be times she'd have to make command decisions and give orders, she considered them all equals. But right now, her heart was racing and she was having a hard time maintaining her outward composure.

"Hey," Carolyn said from behind her; Alex had forgotten that the other woman was there. "You look busy," she continued nonchalantly. "Give me your keys, I'll deal with the car."

"Yeah. Okay." Despite her best efforts, she couldn't keep the relief that was crashing over her out of her voice. She pulled out the keys and handed them to Carolyn. "Thanks."

Carolyn was back in five minutes, setting the keys down on her friend's desk. "Thanks," Alex mumbled again. "I'm sorry."

"Hey, it's no big deal," Carolyn said easily.

"Carolyn," Alex said softly. "I know I'm not technically allowed to give you orders, but - don't feel sorry for me."

"I don't." Carolyn sat down on the edge of Alex's desk in what almost might have seemed a casual gesture, giving the officers outside only a view of her back and partially blocking Alex from their view as well. "I'm just being a friend."

"Right," Alex said skeptically. "Because it's completely normal for one friend to have to run interference to prevent the other one from having a panic attack."

"Sometimes," Carolyn replied, undeterred. "Friends look out for each other. You'd do it for me, we both know that." She let that hang in the air for a moment before she let a small smile come across her face. "And by the way, can I offer a little friendly advice?"

"What?"

"Those jackets aren't going to cut it much longer," she said, letting her smile widen a little. "At some point, you actually will have to tell the office that you're pregnant."

Alex blushed a little. "How long have you known?"

"About a month, but I work with you a lot more than everyone else. I'd say you have another few weeks before they start putting it together."

"Thanks for the heads-up." Alex was smiling a little now too, finding comfort in the simple, ordinary conversation.

"How long did it take last time?"

"Last time, I just told them within the first few months."

"So what's changed?" Carolyn pressed. "Or did you just decide after you'd done it that telling them had been a bad idea?"

"Both," Alex admitted. "They did coddle me way too much, and I was ten years younger then, in better shape for pregnancy with fewer risks than I am now. But also, being a surrogate for my sister was something I could be proud of, as Bobby and Deakins kept reminding me. This pregnancy was a complete accident," she admitted, "and it's not like we've been dating all that long. While he and I are dealing with it just fine, that's not something I'm looking forward to explaining to everyone who asks me who the father is - and you know they will."

"They will," Carolyn agreed. She looked about to say more when Alex noticed someone in the doorway. "Yes?"

"Lieutenant? Line three. It sounds urgent."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah. A lot of fluff without much plot, but I like it.
> 
> For those wondering, Barek will be making occasional appearances throughout this story, and as things stand right now, Logan may show up briefly near the end. Both of them will have bigger roles in subsequent stories.
> 
> This chapter references the Criminal Intent episode Undaunted Mettle.


	9. Normal and Otherwise

Alex nearly collapsed in the armchair the moment she walked through the front door, bringing Bobby instantly to her side. "Alex? Are you -" He cut himself off before he could finish what he knew was a pointless question. "Never mind."

"Have I mentioned I hate this?" she said weakly.

He couldn't even bring himself to smile at her weak attempt at a joke. "Oh, sweetheart, I know you do." He kissed her forehead gently. "Did something happen?"

She nodded. "They wouldn't let me keep my car on the street. Carolyn - Carolyn had to move it for me."

 _Thank you, Carolyn_. "I'm sure she didn't mind."

"She played it off like it was no big deal," Alex confirmed, "but then at the end of the day, I had to get the car to drive home. She'd parked near the door and she walked with me, but even so, I almost couldn't do it." She buried her face in her hands. "It's bad enough I developed an irrational fear because of what happened to me, but why did it have to be something that's such a huge part of life?"

He reached out and stroked her arm in what he hoped was a comforting motion. "I know this is hard to believe, Alex, but it's not going to be like this forever."

"You can't know that."

"Actually, I can. When was the last time you jumped at hearing a curtain slide open or closed?"

"In the hospital," she admitted, "just after -"

"That doesn't count," he interrupted gently. "You were already upset, and probably remembering because of the smell. What about before that?"

"I - I don't know," she admitted. "I guess it had been awhile. I've never - I've never liked that sound, not since the basement, but it doesn't make me jump out of my skin the way it used to." She considered that for a moment. "I guess that's your point, isn't it?"

"Yes," he confirmed. "I know this is hard for you, Alex, and I know that where you are right now, it's hard to see yourself in any other place than this one. But you've been in this place before, and you got out of it. I believe - I _know_ \- that you can do it again."

She reached for his hand, bringing it to her cheek. "When we started dating, I guess this isn't exactly what you had in mind."

"I don't care," he insisted, squeezing Alex's hand where it held his to her face. "God knows you've been on the other end of this, after my mom died, and Frank, and after Donnie disappeared. I'd be here for you no matter what, even if we weren't a couple. And I'm glad that we are. I love you, Alex. I've loved you for years. You don't know what a relief it is to finally be able to tell you that."

She looked up at him and managed a real, if weak, smile. "Actually, I think I do."

He reached across the chair's armrest, pulling her head into his chest. "Yeah," he amended, "I think you do."

"The real question is," she added into his shirt, "are you ready to tell my family that you love me?"

Her family. In all the chaos, he'd forgotten that her sister's birthday party was that weekend, the party at which they'd planned to tell the Eames family that they were together and that Alex would be adding another child into the mix before the end of the year. "Are you sure you still want to do that?"

"For - for a little while. My family's already going to be upset that I waited this long to tell them about the baby. And it's been awhile since I've seen Nate."

"Then we'll go," he whispered into her hair. "But if you get tired or want to leave, just let me know and I'll make up some excuse. Okay?"

"Okay."

xxxxxxxxx

The party was in full swing, a few people spilling out onto the front lawn, by the time Alex and Bobby pulled up in her car. She parked across the street from the house, and Bobby reached out to squeeze her hand before they got out.

"Remember," he mumbled. "I'm your escape hatch."

"Yeah," she murmured back.

"Aunt Alex!" A voice cried out.

"Hey!" she called back urgently, putting up her hand. "You stay there!" She checked to make sure it was clear, and then crossed the street, Bobby trailing close behind.

Her nephew threw his arms around her waist. "I missed you!"

"I know you did," she replied, softening as she hugged him back. "I missed you too. But you were about to cross the street without looking, weren't you?"

"Yeah," he admitted.

"Don't do that," she admonished. "I don't want you to get hurt."

"Okay. You're not going to tell my mom, are you?"

"I think we can let it slide this time."

The boy, meanwhile, had realized who else was there with his aunt. "Bobby!" He let go of Alex and threw himself at the man.

"Hi, Nate." Bobby reached down and lifted the child into his arms. Because of his friendship and partnership with Alex, he had known Nate since the day the child was born, and despite not actually being related to him, he'd been something of a fixture in the boy's life.

"Alex? Alex!" Her sister appeared in the doorway. "I thought I heard Nate call your name."

"Hey, Liz." She embraced her sister warmly. "Happy birthday."

"Oh, my God!" the woman said loudly, pulling back from Alex to visually confirm what she'd felt. "When exactly were you going to tell me about -?" she indicated her sister's rounded belly.

"Today, actually," Alex replied. "I think you may have just blown my big announcement." She should've expected it, she realized. Liz had seen her nearly every day during her first pregnancy, she knew exactly what Alex looked like when she was pregnant.

"Nah," Liz replied offhandedly. "It's turning into a zoo in there. Nobody heard me. But do you really think Dad isn't going to notice? Or our brothers, who have nine kids between the three of them? Face it, little sister. Your announcement will be ruined the second you walk through the door." Then she hugged Alex again. "Congratulations, honey. I'm happy for you."

"Thanks."

"And who -" Liz's sentence trailed off as she got a look past Alex to where her former partner was still playing with Nate. "Never mind. Stupid question. Well, at least Dad likes him."

"Dad's going to freak, isn't he?" Alex said ruefully.

"Probably a little," Liz admitted. "I mean, you may be over forty but you're still his baby girl. But how many times has he ragged on you about having kids? Just remind him of that if he starts complaining too much."

She ran her fingers gently over her abdomen and the child she knew was growing inside. "Yeah, I have a feeling he's going to forget all his complaints the second he has another grandchild to hold and spoil."

"You didn't answer my question, you know," Liz teased. "You actually expected to keep this a secret until you were ready to make the announcement?"

"My coworkers haven't picked up on it yet," Alex objected, "and I see them almost every day."

"Then either they don't have kids or they don't have any powers of observation," Liz countered. "Or both. Come on."

"Who's there?" called a familiar voice. But the source of the voice was clearly not waiting for anyone to call back. In a few moments, John Eames was standing in the doorway.

Alex was vaguely aware that Bobby had come up behind her, but all of her attention was focused on her father as he looked her up and down, clearly catching exactly what Liz had. "Hi, dad," she finally managed.

"This isn't some kind of joke," he asked slowly, "is it?"

"No, Dad." Alex shook her head slowly. "You, um, you know that grandchild you keep giving me a hard time about?" She chewed her lower lip. "In five months you won't be able to anymore."

"And you waited four months to tell me?" he asked a little sharply.

"There's been a lot going on," she said softly, trying to gauge his reaction. "First I just wanted to be sure nothing would go wrong, and then -"

But she was cut off when he closed the distance between them and wrapped her up in his arms. "My baby girl is having a baby," he whispered.

"Yeah," she whispered back. She didn't need to see him to know that he was smiling. "You're going to be a grandfather again."

He stepped back, letting her see the grin that spit his face in two. "And who, besides the baby, should I be welcoming into the family?"

"Too late for that, Dad," she said softly, looking over her shoulder. "You and Mom did that a long time ago." It was absolutely true, she thought as she watched her father process this new bit of information. As soon as they'd learned that their daughter's new partner didn't have much family, her parents had taken to inviting him over for just about every holiday that existed.

She watched the interaction between them carefully, ready to jump in if it looked like trouble was brewing. But after studying Bobby for a few moments, her father started smiling again. "I think if Katherine was here," he said, his face softening at the mention of his late wife, "she'd say it was damn well time."

"She would?" Alex asked, seeing her own shock mirrored on Bobby's face.

"Your mother," he told Alex, "started saying it was plain as day that you two loved each other something like four years after you first started working together. And then she said it so many times I lost count." He hugged Alex again, and then moved past her to stand directly in front of Bobby. "You're not going anywhere, are you?"

"Dad!" Alex protested.

But Bobby answered the question evenly. "No, sir, I'm not. I love Alex, and I love our baby, and we want to raise him or her together. Your wife - Katherine - she was right. I've loved Alex for a long time. Even if this baby hadn't happened, I wouldn't be going anywhere. Not now that we finally have a chance to be together."

Even from behind him, Alex could see the change in her father's posture that told her Bobby had just said exactly the right thing, an observation that was confirmed when he stepped forward and put both his hands on the younger man's shoulders. "Then congratulations. Both of you," he added, looking at Alex, and now his smile could have lit up the entire county. "Come on, you two. We can't be leaving the family in the dark!"

Alex looked over at Bobby, and he was gratified to see a genuine smile on her lips. "Well, that went better than I expected."

xxxxxxxxx

An hour later, Alex wished she'd kept her mouth shut. While she knew rationally that it was coincidence, the more emotional part of her mind couldn't help thinking that her optimistic words on the porch had somehow jinxed the relatively good way the gathering had started out.

Her father had been completely unable to contain his excitement at what Alex had told him, or stop himself from sharing the news with everyone he met, and Alex and Bobby had quickly become the center of a large amount of attention. She had realized quickly that Bobby seemed concerned, and he'd admitted after a little prying that he was worried she was overwhelmed. But, as she had quickly assured him, she hadn't been. Growing up in the Eames family, she had been used to crowds of this size all her life, and somehow, being around this one was only helping to restore her sense of normalcy, helping her to see for the first time since that fateful day in the garage that the world hadn't stopped turning.

It had been only after things had settled down that disaster had struck. Someone - Alex hadn't even seen who - had begun passing around a scarf that had belonged to one of their elderly relatives. It was a beautiful and expensive-looking item, but right away, something about it had made her uneasy. Unfortunately, it hadn't been until the item was in her hands that she'd figured out what it was.

A memory had overwhelmed her then, a memory of standing beside Bobby at a crime scene, examining the body of a young woman. " _You smell that?_ " he had asked. " _It's like a scent - body lotion - rose petals..._ "

" _But not a young woman's scent,_ " she had replied. " _It's Pierre LaRitz, my Aunt Grace used it_."

Instant panic flooded her. All at once, she felt trapped by the huge number of people around her. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't think. Pure instinct had driven her to jump to her feet and run, desperately looking for somewhere, anywhere, that wasn't full of people.

"Alex?"

The deep, gentle voice reached her through the fog of fear. After a few moments, her panicked mind was able to put a name to the voice. "Bobby?"

"Yes, sweetheart, I'm here," he soothed. "You're safe now. Just focus on the sound of my voice, okay? Come on, Alex."

He kept talking, soft words of reassurance, and she did as he had suggested and focused on those words. It was working, she realized quickly. The panic was subsiding and she was becoming more aware of where she was - which, she realized in that moment, was on the floor of a bathroom. "How did I get here?"

"You just got up and ran when you smelled that scarf," he told her. "As soon as I picked up on the smell, I knew what had happened and I ran after you."

"I don't remember," she whispered, knowing that the fear that fact elicited was plain in her voice. "I just remember the fear - and then I was here."

"It's okay." He reached a hand out slowly, silently asking permission to touch her, and she leaned towards him, letting him know it was okay. He cupped her face in his hand, stroking her cheek with his thumb. "When you're scared, sometimes you don't think. You just act."

"But there's no reason to be scared here," she protested weakly.

"Yes, there is," he replied gently. "You're right that there's nothing to be afraid _of_ , but your fear - you smelled something that reminded you of one of the worst things that's ever happened to you. Those memories are enough of a reason to be afraid." He took her into his arms, and it was only then that she realized she was shaking. "I'm here for you, Alex," he whispered, "and you're going to be okay. And it's okay to be scared."

"It happened in front of my entire family," she whispered back. "I wasn't even sure I was going to tell Dad or Liz, how I could tell them, and now everyone saw, and they know something's going on." She noticed a smile pulling at his lips, even as he was clearly trying to fight it. "What?"

"Think about it. Thanks to your dad, everyone in this house knows you're pregnant. And I doubt any of them actually realized you were upset or scared. So what they saw -"

"Was a pregnant woman running to the bathroom," Alex finished, starting to smile too.

"Exactly." He rubbed her back gently, his heart warmed by seeing her smile.

She leaned her head against his shoulder. "I'm really tired all of a sudden."

"You want to leave?"

"Yeah," she admitted. "I don't think I have the energy for this family anymore."

He couldn't help another smile at that. "Okay. You just wait here; I'll let everyone know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. Okay, that chapter was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.
> 
> Katherine Eames' first name is completely made up. Like Rebecca Gage, she was never given a first name on the show, so I picked a fairly generic first name for her. As for Alex's sister, despite her name never being mentioned on the show, all my research seems to indicate that it's canonical that her name is Liz, so that's the name I used.
> 
> As for John, I know he came off a little cold in the one episode (The Last Street In Manhattan) that he appeared in, but by then I'd read so many fanfics with him as a nice guy that I just couldn't picture him as completely cold and surly, not to mention I couldn't reconcile that image with the amount of respect and admiration Alex clearly has for him. So my way of explaining it is to work off the premise that Alex's mother died during what would've been Season 9 of the show (which sort of makes sense; Alex implies her mother is still alive in Season 4, but by Season 10 her father is clearly alone, and there's no mention on the show of her mother dying which means it would've had to have happened during a time when Alex wasn't on the show). By this point, which would be three years after his appearance on the show, I'm going to say that he's doing better and therefore would be able to display the emotions he shows in this chapter.


	10. The Promise

"Hi!"

"Well, hello there," Bobby replied, looking down to the source of the voice: a little brunette girl who barely came up to his waist. He couldn't help the thought that a police station, especially this one with the kind of pictures that might be lying around, was not the place a child should be running free. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm with my mommy," she told him.

"And does she know where you are?" Bobby pressed. He toned down his normal methods considering this stranger was just a child, but it was still enough to let her know that he would know if she lied.

"N-no," the girl admitted. "She told me to sit and wait, but my daddy works here and I wanted to find him."

He couldn't help smiling. _I'd bet anything that this is what Alex was like when she was little._ That particular topic had been on his mind for the past several days, ever since an ultrasound technician had told the two of them that they would be having a daughter.

By sheer coincidence, it had been one month to the day after the attack in the stairwell that Alex had had the momentous appointment. Bobby would in all likelihood have gone with her anyway, every bit as anxious as she was to see their child on the ultrasound screen, but under the circumstances there had been no question he would accompany her. She had needed his hand to hold onto as she navigated the complex maelstrom of emotion that surrounded that day. Her excitement had been tempered, as he had known it would be, by the fact that she had to be touched and examined as part of this appointment. At one point she had panicked, freezing up so completely that she hadn't even been able to speak. It had been Bobby who'd stepped in to stop the doctor before she could traumatize Alex further by continuing the exam while she was paralyzed with fear. He'd held her until she was calm enough to resume the exam, and it had been just a few minutes later that they'd gotten the latest news.

He pulled himself out of his memories, returning his focus to the girl. "Look, I'm sure you want to see him, but running off like that isn't really a good idea. This is a big building, it's easy to get lost. Now where did she tell you to wait?"

"Outside the big room with all the desks."

"Okay, then let's go."

She followed him trustingly back to the squad room. Rollins looked up briefly, noticing his companion. "Hey, Nick!"

The other junior detective was still unloading files from his bag, having apparently just come in. Apparently he'd been quite focused on them, because at the sound of his name, he jumped, letting several files fall to the desk. "What?"

The blonde just nodded her head towards Bobby and the girl, whose face lit up at the sight of the detective. "Daddy!"

"Zara?" he asked in amazement, easily catching the child flying at him. "What are you doing here?"

"It was supposed to be a surprise," another voice said, and everyone in the squad room turned to look at the woman who had just walked in.

Goren could tell by the looks on the SVU detectives' faces that they recognized this woman even before Olivia stood up to greet her. "Maria."

"I had to come up here anyway," she explained. "I finally managed to secure you those files Nick said you needed - don't do anything stupid with them, please, or I'm the one in trouble. Zara's on spring break next week anyway and she was supposed to spend it here, so I just signed her out a few days early. How much is a second-grader going to miss, right?"

Nick's eyes were shining. "Thank you." Then, a moment later, it seemed like reality crashed down on him. "Wait. I have to work today. I can't keep her here with me."

Maria smiled again. "You really think I wouldn't think this through? I gave your mom a heads-up as soon as I started planning this. I'm taking Zara over to her house before I head back to DC. Your mom suggested I take her straight there but I wanted to see your face when you found out."

Bobby had known there was something in this woman's words that was important, and as it finally clicked, he forgot completely about the couple's last exchange. "You brought the files? The military records?"

She looked back at him, trying to size up this stranger who apparently knew a lot more about her than she did about him. "Yes, those files. Do I know you?"

"No." His reply was as blunt and without preamble as her question had been. "Thank you."

xxxxxxxxx

"Well, they almost did what we needed," Olivia commented, "but what happened to flagging anyone with a violent record?"

"She said they wouldn't do it," Murphy replied. "They don't want to implicate a soldier, even a former soldier. Apparently, it took a lot of pulling strings just to get us this much without waiting for the normal channels. She did say the information would be in the files, but we have to find it."

"Does it come before or after the food service orders?" Fin asked, reaching for a box.

Olivia couldn't help a small laugh, but Amaro, Rollins, Murphy, and Goren just stared at him like he was losing his mind. The unit Sergeant finally decided to cut her colleague a break. "About eight years ago, we had a case where we had to try to get some information from the military that they didn't want to give. When Novak subpoenaed them, they sent her the information along with so much clutter that it would've taken years to find what we were looking for."

"Typical Army." Nick was laughing now too, despite the seriousness of the situation. "They're masters at stonewalling. But this doesn't look that bad, does it?" he added. "I can't believe Maria would play along with that kind of stunt."

"It's not that bad," Murphy assured them. "It's a lot of files, but they're all the relevant files, guys who fit our parameters. We're just going to have to sort through them to find the ones who might be good for the murders."

"Timeline says we've got two months," Olivia added. "We can get some unis to help us do the preliminary searches, rule out anyone who absolutely couldn't be it. People who've died, that sort of thing."

"Add to that anyone whose DNA is in the system for any reason," Nick put in. "If it were someone who's been in the system, the DNA would've flagged when we ran the samples from the recent cases at the very least."

Murphy was nodding. "Agreed. Once we've eliminated the impossibilities, then we sit down and go through all the rest of the files with a fine-tooth comb. All of this is now part of an active investigation, with all the priority that implies. I'm not expecting you to work through scheduled vacations - yet," he admitted. "But if you're on the clock and you're not on another active investigation or something equally important, you're working on these files."

"Copy that," the four detectives replied.

"Goren," Murphy added, turning to him. "You're an SVU consultant on this case only, and you're the trained profiler. Are you able to coordinate the unis on the preliminaries?"

"Yes, sir," Goren replied immediately, and not just out of habit. He was eager to finally get moving on this case again, to finally bring down the man who had caused so much destruction.

"Good. And I'll want you in the thick of it once we've whittled down the pile."

"I understand," he replied, and then decided that wasn't good enough. "I will be," he promised, but in his mind, he wasn't promising it to Murphy or any of the others who stood around them. In his mind, the promise was made to his Alex. _I will get justice for what was done to you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shortish chapter, I know, but this really felt like a good place to break it.
> 
> In case you can't tell, Zara Amaro's appearance in this chapter is pretty much entirely a plot device to reveal that Bobby and Alex are having a girl. She won't actually be an important part of the story.
> 
> The reference to the Army sending Novak important information buried in unimportant information is from the SVU episode Goliath. When I was thinking about SVU requesting information from the military, I couldn't get the image of her office stacked to the ceiling with boxes out of my head, so I decided to use it.


	11. Put a Name to the Crime

"What's this?" Nick asked as he and the rest of the SVU team walked into the conference room to see Goren sitting with a box and several stacks of files in front of him.

"These are all the files the Army gave us," the former detective explained. "The ones in the box are the ones we've ruled out over the past two weeks. All this," he added, gesturing at the stacks, "is what's left."

"So," Rollins asked, "what are we looking for?"

"To start with, a history of violent incidents. Obviously we're not going to find anything anywhere near the level of the Sebastian murders, but the amount of rage and brutality in these murders doesn't just spring up out of nowhere. Beyond that -" he shrugged. "Trust your instincts. Profiling isn't an exact science. You've all been doing this awhile; you know when something or someone just doesn't feel right. We see what that leaves us with and then we start tracking those people down."

"That's a lot of ground to cover," Nick said skeptically, "and we're down to six weeks on the timeline. What happens if -"

"We're not there yet," Goren said firmly. "That's six weeks we have to track this guy down. If we get down under two weeks, we can start panicking." This was met with smiles. "In the meantime, let's get to work."

xxxxxxxxx

"Whoa."

Goren and Fin immediately looked up at Rollins, who was staring at a file. Her partner was the one to ask the obvious question. "What is it?"

She handed the file across the table to him. "It almost seems too obvious, but -"

Goren leaned over at a bizarre angle to look over Fin's shoulder, causing Olivia, who had just walked into the room, to burst out laughing, drawing the attention of the other three.

"I'm sorry," she said through her laughter, "it's just - the first time I met Alex, we were working a suspect together and she did that exact maneuver. I remember wondering what the hell she was trying to do. About ten seconds later, the subject, who up to that point had been lying through her teeth when she bothered to speak at all, opened up and told us everything."

"I wouldn't give the posture all the credit," Goren said a little distractedly, his eyes still fixed on the file.

"Oh, no," Olivia agreed. "She knew exactly what to ask and how to ask it. But something about that lean changed the way they were interacting. I asked her about it later and she said she'd learned it from you."

Goren nodded, acknowledging that he'd heard her, but now his attention was almost completely focused on the file, which he slipped out of Fin's hand. "Grab Amaro and Murphy," he said seriously. "I think we have something."

xxxxxxxxx

"William Johnson," Goren said, tacking pages from the file up on the board. "He's even got a name nobody would notice."

"There are a lot of files in those stacks," Amaro pointed out. "What makes you think this is our guy?"

"Rollins caught the first clue." Goren nodded towards the blonde detective. "He's got a conviction for manslaughter related to a kidnapping."

"And he's not in the system?" Murphy interrupted incredulously.

"In Germany," Goren finished. "He had just been relocated to a US base in Germany three months earlier - it wasn't considered a deployment because it wasn't an active war zone, so his DNA wasn't collected. I don't have the details here, but she was found dead in the trunk of his car. No characteristic mutilation, but -"

"You think she would've been Sebastian victim number thirteen," Olivia surmised. "But isn't that kind of a stretch? There are thousands of kidnappings worldwide every year."

"I know. But there's more. The day he was caught was five months to the day after the body of the last Sebastian victim from the original spree was discovered, which fits the timeline. And the charge - that says to me that she died from something he did, but not something he did intentionally - he wasn't trying to kill her right then, maybe he didn't get a chance to do what he wanted to her. Look, I know it could all be one big coincidence, but it's too similar to write it off as that without investigating more."

"Agreed," Murphy said, and the others were nodding. "I'll talk to upstairs, see about getting in contact with the German consulate -"

But Goren was shaking his head. "It'll be faster if I do the contact. The base where Johnson was posted is also one of the bases I served at. I got to know a lot of the local cops; I think a few of them are still there, and I think they'll talk to me."

Murphy nodded. "Do it."

xxxxxxxxx

"You know, when he said he was going to make the call, I guess I assumed the officers in Germany must speak English."

Olivia glanced over at her partner before turning back to Goren where he sat, speaking rapid-fire German into the phone in his right hand, then pausing to listen while scribbling on a notepad with his left. "For all we know, maybe they do."

Nick smiled, but the conversation was cut short when Goren said something that sounded like an expression of thanks and hung up. "They're faxing us the file," he told the detectives.

"That was easy," Benson commented. "Easier than the FBI, that's for sure."

Goren nodded. "It's not just because of my connections. I was able to get through to the officers who actually worked the case. I have a feeling that for them, it's one of those cases that haunts them when they can't sleep at night."

As if on cue, the fax machine beeped. Goren began gathering up the papers it was spitting out while Olivia gathered up the rest of the team. By the time they were all assembled, Goren was deep into the file, nodding his head every so often.

He stood finally, tacking a photo of a young blonde woman onto the board. "Brigitte Kaufman. Sebastian victim number thirteen. According to the report William Johnson was driving down the road when his car blew a tire and spun out, hitting a telephone pole. Cops arrived on scene almost immediately and while they were working through the wreckage, they found Brigitte's body in the trunk. She'd been abducted earlier that day; no one had even realized she was missing. Johnson was arrested on the spot."

"She died in the crash?" Amaro asked.

Goren shook his head. "The coroner thought she was probably dead before the accident. Johnson hit her over the head to incapacitate her, same as all the other Sebastian victims. Only in Brigitte's case, she had a clotting disorder and the head trauma caused a massive brain hemorrhage. The only comfort, such as it is, is that it's pretty much a certainty that she never woke up, never had any idea she'd even been kidnapped, and didn't feel any pain."

"At least that's something," Olivia mumbled. She couldn't help but remember what Alex had told her about the woman in the basement screaming as she was tortured, couldn't help but think of Lisa Moore's mutilated body.

Goren nodded in agreement before turning back to the file. "Brigitte's family was wealthy, so the theory at the time was that it was a ransom kidnapping. Johnson refused to speak about motive; he didn't deny it but he didn't confirm it either. The army dishonorably discharged him and handed him over to the local authorities. In 1993, he was sentenced to twenty years in the German prison system."

"So he was released last year," Fin surmised.

Goren nodded. "Released and then held pending deportation. He arrived back in the United States two months before Lisa Moore was killed."

"What did the local cops have to say?" Rollins queried.

"The guy I talked to, he was never entirely convinced that ransom was all it was. There was no actual evidence to suggest it was anything else, but he said the guy just didn't seem right. He was right there when they pulled the body out of his trunk and he barely blinked. They said it seemed like the only thing that affected him at all was the fact that he'd been caught."

"Which doesn't make sense for a ransom kidnap," Olivia finished, saying what they were all thinking, "but makes perfect sense for someone who's killed before, who's even enjoyed it."

"There's more," Goren added. "Once I got the rundown on the Brigitte Kaufman murder, I asked a few other questions on kind of a hunch. Turns out, about four years after Brigitte died, some contractors got a job to renovate an abandoned building and they found something that looked like a torture chamber - the officer's words, not mine - in the basement. It was clearly years abandoned and they were never able to get any leads. I asked the officer if the path that Johnson was driving could have taken him to that building, and he said yes, but they'd never had reason to suspect one was connected to the other." He looked around at the assembled officers. "Look, I know that right now all of this is a bunch of circumstantial evidence held together by theory and extrapolation, but every fiber of my being says that _this is our guy_."

Olivia was nodding. "It may be circumstantial but there's a lot of it. It's hard to buy all of this as a coincidence. Not to mention, all we need is enough to pick him up and get his DNA. That'll convict him - or clear him," she added belatedly, as sure as Goren was that it would be the former case. "And if we need another nail in the coffin, Alex seemed sure that she could make a voice ID."

"Call the ADA," Murphy instructed Olivia. "Get a warrant for him. I'll start working on an APB."

The rest of his sentence didn't need to be said. The words hung so heavily in the air that it was almost tangible. _And let's hope we find him in time._

xxxxxxxxx

A ringing phone cut through the silence, and both occupants of the room's large bed stirred at the sound. A hand reached out towards the bedside table, reaching for something, only to come up empty. "Have you seen my phone?"

Olivia sat up slowly, blinking the sleep out of her eyes as she smiled at her husband. "It's _my_ phone, El. You're not on the job anymore, remember?"

"Oh...yeah," he mumbled, waking up a little bit more.

She grabbed her phone, sliding her finger across it to answer. "Benson. What? Are you - never mind, of course you're sure. Are they sure? Okay. I'm on my way."

"Middle of the night?" Elliot commented, now fully awake. "That's rarely a good sign."

"This time, it might be," she replied, already out of bed and starting to dress. "Unis just arrested someone who matches the description of a suspect on a big case."

"It must be a big case, if they're waking you up at four in the morning over an arrest." He smiled gently, making it clear he had no hard feelings over this. He'd been on the other end enough times.

Olivia nodded, leaning over to kiss him. "I should be home at the usual time. If I'm stuck there late, I'll call you."

"Understood. Go get him, Liv."

Despite the weight of the situation, she couldn't help but smile as she walked out the door.

xxxxxxxxx

"Nice work today," Olivia said to the two officers as they stood beside their car, looking past them and through the window to where their suspect sat handcuffed in the backseat.

"Nice timing is more like it," the senior officer replied, looking faintly embarrassed by the praise. "We just stopped for a cup of coffee. It was Hanson's turn to buy," here he gestured to his partner, "so he walks into the bodega and there he is, just looking over the bread selection. We all saw that aged-up photo you sent around, and it's kind of scary how accurate it is. He didn't look armed, so Hanson called me in, and we arrested him. Found his ID when we searched him." He handed the item in question to the Sergeant. "Same name, same DOB. Either we've got one hell of a coincidence, or this is the guy."

"Like I said, nice work. Let's get him down to our station."

With a quick "yes, ma'am" from the younger officer and a "right away" from the other, they climbed back into their cruiser and drove off.

"Wow." Olivia turned at the sound of her partner's voice. "And not a moment too soon." It had been a week and a half since they'd identified Johnson as a likely suspect in the Sebastian murders, and they'd all become increasingly nervous as the days ticked away, bringing them closer and closer to the time when the serial killer was likely to take his next victim.

"Yeah," she agreed. "Good thing these two were paying attention when that picture went around."

"Think we should call Goren now?" Nick asked as he climbed into the SUV. "Or should we wait until it's a reasonable hour?"

Olivia pursed her lips for a long moment. "Normally, I'd say call him, no matter that it's now -" she glanced at the dashboard clock "five o'clock in the morning. He's a former cop, he's not going to get in our way. What worries me is that I'd lay odds he's with Alex right now. We're already walking a tightrope having him help investigate the man who raped his girlfriend. We still need Alex to make a voice ID to cement our case. The last thing anyone wants is for that ID to get tossed because some defense attorney makes it look like we gave her some kind of heads-up." She thought for a second. "We'll just hold him for now. I can't imagine an interrogation would give us much anyway; when he was arrested in Germany, they grilled him for days and he never so much as cracked. What's going to hang him is the DNA and the voice ID. We'll let Goren in on it before we make the next move; it'll only be a few hours anyway. Meanwhile, we'll wake up Barba and get him working on a DNA warrant."

Nick nodded. "Copy that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...yeah. A lot of ground covered, but it doesn't feel like it's going too fast, at least not to me. Sebastian is now in custody, but this story is far from over, so stay tuned!
> 
> This chapter references the SVU episode Acceptable Loss.


	12. To The Heart of the Matter

"It's hard to believe," Olivia said softly. "He just looks like a normal guy in his fifties. Just wrapping my head around the idea that he's..."

"Evil incarnate?" Goren finished when she stalled. "I know what you mean. Remember that serial killer I told you about? Nicole Wallace? She had a higher body count than a lot of famous serial killers, and she came off as a sweet girl who couldn't hurt a fly. It's why she got away with it so many times." He looked through the window. "Has he said anything yet?"

Olivia shook her head. "He's barely said a word period, let alone anything about his crimes. We sent a DNA swab down to the lab; Warner's agreed to rush it."

Goren nodded. "What's next?"

"We'll put him in the box, but I'm not expecting that to go anywhere. We both know what happened in Germany. Meanwhile, we need to round up some fillers for a voice lineup. Once that's set, we'll call Alex in." She looked over at Goren regretfully. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you not to be in the room or to even talk to Alex when she comes in until after the lineup is done. There's too much of a risk of them claiming tainted ID - _I_ know you wouldn't do that, but that won't stop a defense attorney from trying to get a good ID tossed on a technicality."

He looked up, and his eyes were full of pain just thinking about Alex's ordeal, but he nodded. "I understand."

xxxxxxxxx

It was no surprise to anyone that Olivia was able to grab her desk phone on the first ring. She'd been staring at it all morning, barely able to focus on anything else. "Benson." A pause. "Okay, thanks."

"Eames here?" Nick asked, in a tone that suggested he already knew the answer.

"Yeah." Olivia nodded. "I'm going to meet her off the elevator." She bit her lip. "I know she'd prefer to be treated as a cop through this, but...she's not. She's a victim, and I think she's going to need more support than she thinks or wishes she did."

Alex stepped off the elevator, looking pale but composed. She was six months pregnant now and there was no longer any way she could have downplayed her condition enough to conceal it. She gave Olivia a weak smile. "Hey."

"Hey," Olivia replied warmly. "You want to come sit down for a minute?"

"Okay," the blonde agreed noncommittally.

Olivia could tell that her friend's calm demeanor was a facade, and she knew how much it was costing her to keep it up. She led Alex into the interview room they often used for victims, a room that they'd set up specifically to be a comfortable environment for the vulnerable people the unit often encountered. "Here, just take a minute. Can I get you anything?"

"No - no, I'm good, thanks."

"How are you doing?" Olivia asked her gently. "I hear it's a girl."

Alex gave a weak smile at that, laying her hand on her stomach. "Bobby, I take it?"

"Not even born, and she already has a very proud daddy," she replied by way of confirmation.

"He's here?" It was a question that barely needed to be asked. _Where else would he be?_

"Yes, he's here. I can't let you two talk right now, but he's here for you. As soon as the lineup is over, you can have some time if you need it."

"Thank you." She quickly clasped her other hand over the one that rested on the baby bump, gripping tightly, hoping to hide the fact that, as she had just realized, they were both shaking.

Olivia, however, was too experienced to be fooled. She gently reached over, laying her own hand on top of Alex's. "It's okay," she said gently. "It's okay to be afraid. It's okay not to be okay right now."

"It's not okay with me," Alex whispered back, her eyes shimmering with tears that threatened to spill over.

"Oh, honey, I know this is really hard." Olivia remembered all at once the evening where they'd sat together in a bar, how much of a difference it had made to know that the blonde truly understood the tumult of emotions she was caught up in. "You and me - female cops - we always have to try twice as hard to seem strong, because if we don't, the good-old-boy system will eat us alive."

Alex was nodding in agreement. "Show a second of weakness, and they'll treat it as a reinforcement of every bad thing they believe about you for being a female cop. Not all of them, of course, but it only takes a few."

"So we build that up as part of who we are," Olivia continued. "I remember, after Lewis, sometimes it seemed like the worst part was how thin all that strength seemed, how vulnerable I felt underneath. Feeling vulnerable is scary enough, but when it threatens a wall that we've built up against another kind of threat, that just magnifies all of it to terrifying levels." She squeezed her friend's hand. "And I know that's what you must be feeling right now."

"Yeah," Alex said softly, a tremor she couldn't hide in her voice. "That sounds about right."

"I know you're afraid," Olivia soothed. "Afraid of him, and afraid of being afraid. But you're safe in here. I'd never judge you. I know that you're hurting, and I know that that in no way takes away from how strong you are."

To Olivia's surprise, Alex turned and wrapped her arms around the taller woman. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you for...for just being here. Thank you for being my friend."

"Anytime," Olivia replied, gently returning the embrace. "I'm always here for you."

xxxxxxxxx

" _I could kill you right here, or take you with me, and there wouldn't be a damn thing you could do about it._ "

Alex seemed taken aback just hearing the words that her rapist had taunted her with, and Olivia couldn't blame her. But after a moment, the blonde shook her head. "No."

"Number two," Fin called into the speaker.

" _I could kill you right here, or take you with me, and there wouldn't be a damn thing you could do about it._ "

Again, a shake of the head. "No."

Fin leaned back to the speaker. "Number three."

" _I could kill you right here, or take you with me, and there wouldn't be a damn thing you could do about it._ "

Alex's eyes went wide, her breath catching in her throat as she stepped back instinctively from the covered window into the room where she knew the men stood. "Oh, my God, that's him. Number three. That's the man who raped me."

"Are you sure?" Olivia pressed. "We still have -"

"I'm positive," Alex interrupted. "It's him."

Fin knocked three times on the glass as Olivia escorted Alex back to the interview room. The blonde was trembling as she collapsed on the couch. "Damn..." she whispered faintly. "That voice..."

"It's okay," Olivia soothed, running a hand over her friend's arm and shoulder. "I know that was awful for you, but it's over now."

A knock on the door startled both of them, and Olivia walked over to it, opening it a crack to determine who the newcomer was. When she saw who was standing there, she relaxed, smiling a little and pulling the door open. "Alex, there's someone here to see you."

She looked up, catching sight of the man standing beside Olivia. "Bobby..." she whispered breathlessly.

He was instantly at her side, gathering her into his arms. "I'm here now, baby," he murmured. "I'm here. You're safe. I'm here."

They were both vaguely aware of the door closing again as the Sergeant stepped out to give the couple some privacy, but neither of them really paid it any mind. Alex closed her eyes and allowed herself to relax in the safety of her boyfriend's arms as he cradled her close, whispering soothing words into her hair. After a few minutes, she realized that the fabric against her cheek was damp. She hadn't even been aware she was crying.

They sat there, wrapped in each other's arms, until they heard the door creak open. They both looked up to see Olivia standing in the doorway. "I'm sorry to bother you," she said softly, "but we're about to put him in the box, and since Bobby's interrogation skills are legendary, I thought you might want to take a run at him."

The former detective hesitated, prompting Alex to give him a light shove against the chest. "I'll be fine. _Go_."

He slowly unwrapped himself from her and stood. "You sure?"

"I'm sure. Go on, give him one of those famous Goren interrogations."

xxxxxxxxx

"Well, that was a waste of time."

Goren could only nod in agreement with Amaro as they walked from the interrogation room back into the main bullpen. While it had been clear to him that he was making Johnson uncomfortable during the interrogation, the man had nevertheless sat in silence for fifteen minutes before breaking that silence just long enough to ask for a lawyer. "Well, the confession was always just going to be gravy. The ID and the DNA will be more than enough to nail him."

"Speaking of which," Murphy added, having overheard the end of the conversation, "where are we on the DNA?"

"Still nothing," Rollins reported. "Want me to go bug the lab?"

"Do it," the Lieutenant confirmed. "I'd like to have those results to give the DA before the arraignment."

As the blonde detective headed off down the hall, Goren turned, intending to ask Murphy when the ADA was expected and when he thought the arraignment might happen. But the words never had a chance to leave his lips. The loud, echoing ring of a gunshot shattered the relative quiet of the squad room. Almost before anyone realized what they'd heard, another shot rang out, followed by the crash of glass breaking.

Someone screamed "get down!" but it was almost unnecessary; everyone in the squad room had already run for cover. Then they heard a dull thud, followed by a cry of pain.

Nick's face immediately drained of blood. "Amanda." The name came out as a whispered moan, and it was all he could do not to scream it out loud. "No, God, no."

Peering out from behind the desk, Goren saw two figures, barely an inch of space between them, come walking back into the squad room. His stomach sank as he realized that one of them was William Johnson, and the reason the two were standing so close together was that he had his arm tightly around Amanda Rollins, while the other hand pressed the barrel of a handgun into her temple. Her cheek was bright red where his blow had landed.

"Nobody moves!" he said loudly. "Try to stop me, and I kill her." He pressed the gun harder against the blonde's head, drawing a whimper of mixed pain and fear from her. "I'll do it. You know I'll do it."

"If he gets her out of here..." Nick hissed, pain in every syllable. He didn't have to finish the sentence for everyone within earshot to know what he meant.

Goren's eyes were drawn past Johnson to motion across the room. He barely had time to realize the door to the interview room had swung open before Alex stood in the squad room, her gun raised and aimed at the serial killer's head. "Drop it!"

And then time seemed to slow to an infinitesimal pace. It was all over in less than a minute, but to Goren, kneeling behind a desk, it might as well have been an eternity.

Startled by the voice behind him, Johnson spun, turning both his body and his gun to face the newcomer. At the same time, taking full advantage of the fact that his gun was no longer pointed at her head, Rollins planted her feet hard, stopping herself from turning with him and opening up a space between herself and her attacker.

Seeing the gun swing towards her, Alex quickly pulled the trigger of her own weapon, aiming for Johnson's now-exposed chest. At the same time, he fired two shots at her.

Alex's bullet entered just below the serial killer's shoulder. As he reeled in pain, Rollins took full advantage of his now-weakened grip to tear herself free of his hold and run towards the desks where everyone was hiding. As she came towards them, Amaro jumped to his feet, heedless of the danger, and reached out both hands to pull the shaken woman to relative safety, guiding her to the floor and wrapping his arms around her as they huddled together beneath a desk.

But Goren was barely aware of this happening not three feet from him. All of his attention was focused on Alex as she fell backwards into Olivia, who had been standing just behind her, losing her grip on her gun from the pain of a bullet in her right arm as her left hand instinctively moved to cover the wound in her abdomen where the second shot had landed. Olivia eased her to the ground, holding one hand over each of Alex's wounds, trying to keep pressure on them and slow the bleeding.

Johnson, meanwhile, had regained control of his weapon, and he raised it again, taking aim at Alex's head. "Fitting, isn't it?" Two shots rang out, and Alex closed her eyes as Olivia instinctively curled her own body over the blonde in an attempt to shield her as best she could.

But no bullets hit either woman. Instead, Johnson jerked abruptly. For a split second, he stood there, frozen, his face a mask of shock and rage. Then he simply fell forward, crumpling to the floor as two spots of blood began to form on his back where the shots had entered, and Goren stood behind him, still holding the gun that Amaro had set down when he'd stood to help Rollins to cover, staring at the smoke rising from the barrel as if he couldn't believe that he had been the one to fire those shots. For a moment, nobody moved. Not a word was spoken. It was as though the squad room was held in suspended animation.

Then all at once, a flurry of activity broke forth. Two officers, guns drawn, ran to where Johnson lay facedown on the floor. One knelt beside him, checked for a pulse, glanced at the location of the bullet wounds and then shook his head. "He's DOA. Looks like he was hit right in the heart."

Goren had never once fired his weapon in the line of duty. It had crossed his mind a few times over the years, watching other officers dealing with the emotional repercussions of taking a life, to both wonder about and fear his own reaction if he were ever put in that position. But in this moment, he was incapable of feeling anything at all about the actions he had taken. Every fiber of his being was focused on Alex.

He crossed the room at a sprint, dropping to his knees beside his girlfriend the moment he'd reached her. "Alex? Alex!"

"I can hear you," she said weakly, wincing in pain. "Bobby...the baby..."

His gaze dropped to where her left hand was covering her abdominal wound. "Oh, God. She needs medical attention, now!" The last was all but shouted.

"I'm calling EMS!" someone else shouted. Goren didn't care enough to figure out who.

But Olivia was shaking her head. "It'll be faster if we take her in. Can you carry her?" she asked Bobby.

"Yes," he said quickly, already reaching out to gather her up. Olivia helped him transfer her into his arms as gently as possible. As Alex's head and shoulders were lifted away from her, he realized that her clothes were stained with blood. _Alex's blood_. He suddenly felt sick.

Olivia, for her part, barely seemed to notice. She stood, pulling her keys from her pocket as she ran for the elevator. "Come on, let's go."

Bobby followed, still feeling numb and shocked by the day's events. The only thing he could think now was _she has to be okay._

_She has to._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Goren does in fact take down Sebastian - just not in the way that one might expect! This was always my intent with this story. There is a sort of parallel here, Goren taking down Gage's nemesis while Gage took down Goren's, but it's also meant to highlight the differences between the two. While Gage killed out of some twisted conception of caring, Goren killed out of genuine love for Alex and his baby. While Gage planned and carried out a cold-blooded execution, Goren killed in the heat of the moment to stop an active threat, and that is pretty well established as the only reason Goren would ever kill. And while Gage will likely go to his grave without a shred of remorse, Goren will have to eventually face the emotional impact of the fact that he took a life, because he actually has emotions.
> 
> I'm sure some people would have liked to see Goren take Sebastian/Johnson in his preferred arena - with words - but I'd already established that he wasn't one who was likely to crack under pressure, and it seemed in character that if he thought he was in any danger of cracking, he'd do the one thing in his power to stop the interrogation and ask for a lawyer.
> 
> There are still at least a few chapters to go, so as always, stay tuned! And yes, this chapter's title could absolutely be taken in more than one way.
> 
> This chapter references the SVU episode Surrender Benson and a subplot that ran through much of Season 15.


	13. The Storm That Follows the Calm

Olivia's eyes were fixed on the road as she drove through the streets of New York at what had to be three times the speed limit, looking carefully for anyone who might dare to defy the lights and sirens. She could hear Bobby in the backseat talking to Alex, trying to stay calm but with a note of panic beneath his voice. "Come on, sweetheart. Hold on. Just hold on."

She sped into the parking lot, tires squealing as she slammed on the breaks. A concerned doctor was beside the vehicle before she'd even taken the keys out of the ignition.

"Adult female," she called to him as she stepped out of the car. "Six months pregnant. GSW to the abdomen and the upper right arm."

He waved over his shoulder, and two women in scrubs came running over with a stretcher. Bobby had stepped out of the car, still cradling Alex in his arms, and he set her down gently. He kept hold of her uninjured left hand, and both he and Olivia stayed close beside the stretcher as it was wheeled inside. The blonde was pale and glassy-eyed from blood loss, but she still responded when Bobby squeezed her hand.

"Who's her medical proxy?" one of the nurses all but demanded.

"Her father," Bobby replied immediately. It had been John Eames since her first day on the job, and even after she and Bobby had become close, she'd kept her father as her proxy, reasoning that making her partner her proxy could become a problem in the not impossible event that they were both incapacitated at the same time. "His number will be in her phone under 'Dad'."

She was wheeled through the ER and through a set of double doors where a nurse stopped Bobby and Olivia. "I'm sorry, but you'll have to wait out here."

"Please..." Bobby said softly. "It's my girlfriend...my daughter. Is there at least somewhere I can watch?"

"There's an observation room over the OR," she replied, her face softening. "I'll have someone show you."

xxxxxxxxx

"All right," Murphy said, surveying the scene in the squad room. "How the hell did this happen?"

"He just came out of the observation room," Rollins said, standing up shakily from behind the desk with Amaro's help. "I was walking down the hall, I heard the shots and the glass break, and the next thing I know, he's in front of me and swinging his gun at my face." She gently ran her fingers over her cheek, which was still bright red.

Murphy turned on his heel and made his way briskly towards the interrogation room, followed by most of the officers who had been present. As many of them had expected, the one-way mirror between the interrogation and observation rooms was destroyed, apparently having shattered from the impact of a bullet that had been fired through the glass.

Two officers lay crumpled in the interrogation room, and the officers immediately ran over to them. The younger of the two lay facedown in a pool of blood stemming from a hole in the back of his head. Fin checked automatically for a pulse, but that only confirmed what he already knew. "Point-blank shot, back of the head. Nothing anyone could've done."

Amaro and Rollins, meanwhile, were kneeling beside the other officer, who was lying on his side with blood seeping from a wound to his temple. Amaro felt for a pulse and let out a small sigh of relief. "He's alive."

Rollins was examining the wound. "I don't think he was shot."

"That's consistent with what we heard," Murphy confirmed. "Only two shots fired in here, and we've already accounted for both of them."

Rollins nodded. "Looks like he was hit in the head with a blunt object - might've been pistol-whipped. We need EMS in here, _now_!" That last was shouted to anyone within earshot, and one of the officers at the back of the crowd immediately ran for the nearest phone. "He's alive but this doesn't look good."

Amaro, meanwhile, was checking the officer for injuries and noticed something that he immediately realized might be significant. "He's still got his gun. Fin -"

"He doesn't," the other detective replied after quickly checking the dead officer. "What are you thinking?"

Amaro stood up slowly. "I think I'm getting an idea of how this went down. He asked for a lawyer, so Goren and I left, letting these two in as we walked out. They were going to cuff him and take him to holding. So they go to cuff him, and Lockard here," he indicated the younger officer, "steps into the wrong position at the wrong time, putting his sidearm within Johnson's reach. Johnson reaches out, grabs it, fires the first shot into Lockard's head, then turns and hits Montgomery with the back end of the gun, taking him down before he can react to the shot. He knows the door's locked, so he fires into the window to break it, then climbs through the open window, runs out the door from observation where he sees Rollins, and from there..." he shrugged. "From there, we all know what happened."

Rollins nodded, and Amaro realized she was starting to shiver. He reached out a hand, helping her to her feet. "Come on. We know now what happened here, everyone else can handle it. Let's go sit somewhere quiet for a bit. I want to take a look at your face, make sure it's only bruised."

"It's only bruised," the blonde insisted, but she didn't resist as he led her from the room. The adrenaline was wearing off, and as it did, the full impact of what she'd been through was starting to hit.

He led her through the squadroom, doing the best to put himself between her and the sight of William Johnson's body where it still lay on the hardwood floor, and led her up to the crib. She was unsteady on her feet, so he lowered her gently onto a bunk, then sat beside her and took her into his arms. He made no move to examine her injured cheek, and neither of them spoke. They just held each other.

xxxxxxxxx

The man who joined Bobby and Olivia in the observation room was ashen, but he stood almost rigidly as if refusing to allow himself any more signs of fear than were absolutely necessary.

The Sergeant didn't recognize him, but it was clear to her that Bobby did, as he tried and failed several times to speak, staring at his shoes the whole time. It was the newcomer who finally broke the silence. "Alex...is she..."

"Hanging in there," he replied, finally finding his voice now that he had a concrete idea of what to say. He couldn't bring himself to say the rest. "Sergeant...Olivia," he said, stumbling over what to call her under the circumstances, "this is, uh, this is Alex's father."

"Olivia Benson." She offered him her hand, but he didn't reach for it, just staring at her instead.

In the next moment, she realized why. She was still dressed in the same clothes she'd been wearing at the time of the shooting, the clothes that were stained with Alex's blood. "Oh, my God." She could only imagine what seeing that must be doing for him. "I am so, so sorry."

"Don't be," Bobby said softly from beside her. "You - that happened because you were trying to help her. You caught her when she fell and tried to stop the bleeding. And I saw you right after - you were protecting her, you put yourself in danger to protect her."

Olivia nodded, acknowledging the validity of Bobby's words, but they didn't help any. All she could think about was the series of medical crises that Noah had gone through in the short time she'd been his parent, how helpless and scared and worried she'd been every single time, and how much worse it would've been to see something on the level of what he was seeing now. "I'm still sorry."

Any further conversation was forestalled when the door to the observation room opened and a doctor stepped in. "Family of Alexandra Eames?"

"I'm her father," the older man replied immediately. "John Eames."

"If I could have a word with you in private-"

"It's all right," he replied immediately, his eyes still fixed on the still form of his daughter where she lay on the operating table. "We can talk in front of them."

"All right," the doctor said after a moment. "The good news is, she's stable and expected to make a full recovery. She'll need intensive physio on that arm, but there shouldn't be any lasting damage. We're transfusing her to compensate for the blood loss, and she's responding well."

The words were positive, and the relief in the room was palpable, but none of them missed the tension in the doctor's tone. John broke the silence after a long moment. "And the bad news?"

His tone was even more somber as he replied. "The bullet that hit her in the abdomen penetrated the uterine wall and tore a hole in the amniotic sac. By some miracle, it missed hitting the baby, but we'll need to do an emergency c-section."

"What are the baby's chances?" Bobby asked hoarsely.

The doctor looked over to John, who gave a quick nod of approval, and then turned back to the younger man. "According to Ms. Eames' medical records, she's just shy of twenty-six weeks along?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Well, we won't know for sure until we actually get a chance to examine the baby, but statistically, the chances at that stage of development are around eighty percent. It's a lot better than it would have been even two weeks ago."

"There's no choice," John said softly, "is there?"

The doctor shook his head. "There's no way she can finish the pregnancy. Not with this kind of damage."

"All right," he said finally. "I'll sign the consent forms."

xxxxxxxxx

Three pairs of eyes watched in anticipation as several pairs of gloved hands lifted the tiny child out through the incision in Alex's abdomen. John's first thought was how different this was from any birth he'd ever witnessed. He'd been at his wife's side for the births of each of his five children, and at the time, he had thought that they were all very different from each other. But what he was seeing now was so far removed from all of them that it made them seem more alike than he'd originally thought. Even with the one c-section Katherine had had, they had both waited in eager anticipation for that first sharp cry, and in each case, it had come after a few moments, two of them with no prompting, three (including Alex, he remembered fondly) after a quick slap of encouragement. He'd been told after the births of several of his most recent grandchildren that the practice of spanking babies to encourage breathing was no longer practiced, but he also knew that this wasn't the reason this baby wasn't crying. No one had expected her to. The lungs were not developed enough to breathe independently; one of this baby's first impressions of the world would be a respirator. The NICU staff had already closed in with an arsenal of equipment, pulling the baby off to the side as the doctor began to close the incision.

Bobby's eyes darted between mother and daughter. Though he knew the science behind it, the more emotional part of him almost couldn't believe that Alex would fully recover from such a massive procedure. And the baby - she couldn't weigh two pounds. How could such a small human survive?

Olivia fought to shake off memories of the last severely premature infant she'd come across, a tiny girl who had died in her arms without so much as a name. _This girl isn't the same_ , she reminded herself forcefully, trying to remember the optimistic odds this doctor had given just minutes earlier, such a contrast to the grim ones the other baby had had. In the next moment, she realized a few tears had slipped from her eyes just remembering. _This baby has to be okay_.

xxxxxxxxx

A strange ringing cut through the fog in Olivia's head, which only served to remind her of the fog's existence. _Why am I feeling so out of it, anyway? It's only the middle of the afternoon._ One night's interrupted sleep wouldn't do that to her. It had to be the adrenaline from the shooting, she realized. An adrenaline crash could make her feel foggy and disoriented.

The ringing sounded again, and Olivia suddenly realized it was her phone. _Damn, it must be a bad crash if it took me this long to figure that out_. She pulled it out of her pocket, pressing the button to answer. "Benson."

" _Liv?_ "

"Elliot?" Fog or no fog, she couldn't miss the worried tone in his voice. "Is something wrong?"

" _That's what I wanted to ask you. I heard there was a shooting at SVU. Are you okay?_ "

"I'm fine," she assured him quickly. "I didn't think you'd hear - who told you?"

" _The news. They broke the story over an hour ago. Are you sure you're okay? This is the fourth time I've called._ "

"I've been at the hospital. Not for myself," she rushed to assure him. "I brought in a - an officer who was shot." She trusted Elliot completely, but she was still bound by her personal desire to keep a victim's identity confidential if at all possible. This way, even if the press released Alex's name, there still wasn't enough detail to put together the reason why she'd been at SVU. "I had my phone off. I just turned it back on when I came out to the waiting room."

" _What the hell happened?_ " Reassured now that his wife was unharmed, he turned his attention to the details of the situation.

"Suspect got a gun, started shooting and took a hostage." She realized with a start that this was all she knew, hours after the incident. Her entire focus had been on supporting Alex and then Bobby, who she could tell was hanging by a thread.

Thankfully, Elliot didn't question further. Maybe he sensed that she didn't want to answer, or maybe he just thought that the Department had told her not to elaborate. " _You still there?_ "

"Yeah. Probably will be for awhile yet. Tell the boys I'm sorry?"

" _Will do_ ," he assured her. " _Is there anything you need?_ "

Olivia glanced down at herself; she was still wearing the suit she'd worn into work before the shooting, stained with now-dried blood. "I could probably use a change of clothes."

" _I'll be right there_." He hung up before she could respond.

xxxxxxxxx

Bobby slowly reached through the opening in the ICU incubator, careful not to disturb the many monitors and wires attached to his baby daughter. "Hello," he whispered, his voice choked with tears. "I'm your daddy."

"Mr. Goren, I presume?"

He jumped, startled by the voice and shocked that anyone could have come up behind him unnoticed. "Yes. Robert Goren. And you are?"

"Doctor Bethany Giles. I'm the primary ICU nurse assigned to your daughter's care."

"How is she?"

"Stable." She gave him a sympathetic look. "I know it's never easy for parents to see their children this way, but she's actually doing quite well under the circumstances."

"Thank you," he replied rather numbly.

"For what it's worth, Mr. Eames - the mother's next-of-kin - has been quite adamant that you're the legal next-of-kin for your daughter. We'll have to do some paperwork on that later, but until the mother wakes up, we will allow you to be the primary decision-maker."

Tears pricked his eyes at that. The care that the Eames family had showed him had always been almost incomprehensible, especially with his background. But this - John easily could have claimed decision-making power for the baby while Alex was still out from the anesthesia, and no one would have questioned it.

"For the moment, as I said, she's stable and the course of treatment is routine. I do have one question for you, however."

"Yes?"

"Does your daughter have a name?"

The question was so unexpected that it actually brought Bobby up short. "What?"

"A name," she repeated gently. "It helps them, we think, to have a specific identity, even at this stage. Something to call them. We try to talk to them as much as we can, of course."

"Of course," he repeated, still feeling numb. "And, um, yes. She has a name." He swallowed hard, the memory of lying in bed with Alex as they debated names for their daughter warring with the image of Alex on the operating table and the baby in the incubator. "Sarah. Her name is Sarah Katherine Goren."

The nurse smiled. "I'll put that on the chart." Then she leaned in conspiratorially. "Now, you didn't hear this from me, but I've been doing this for a long time, and my unofficial opinion is, Sarah's going to pull through just fine. From what I've seen, she's one tough little girl."

Unexpectedly, Bobby felt a smile tugging at his lips. "Of course she is. She's her mother's daughter all the way."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major props to my fellow Fanfiction author In the House for this chapter. Her story Onslaught gave me a lot of direction around the scenes having to do with the birth and care of a premature infant.
> 
> The baby who died without a name is a reference to the SVU episode Savior, in which a severely premature infant without a name is left in Olivia's care and is in serious condition the last time we see her. Since we never see or hear anything about that baby again, it seemed to make the most sense that the baby had died (which was a very real possibility at the end of the episode).


	14. It's Over But Not Done

Her eyelids felt heavy and stuck together. Her arm and abdomen were consumed with a dull throbbing. There was an irritating beeping filling the room, and a strange, sanitized smell.

She forced her eyes to open. At first, it was a blur of colors and lights, but things quickly came into focus. The machines, the white ceiling, the florescent lights. She was sure now; it was a hospital.

She tried to sit up, but even apart from the pain, her body felt limp and weak and she was barely able to raise her head from the pillow. Immediately, she heard someone move, and then a familiar face came into view. "Alex? You're awake?"

"Dad?" she replied, realizing as she said it how weak and raspy her voice sounded.

"Yes, I'm here."

"What happened?" she demanded. "Where's Bobby?"

"He'll be here in a little while," her father soothed

Alex could tell right away that there was something going on he wasn't saying. "What aren't you telling me?"

John drew a slow breath. "He's with your daughter," he said finally.

"Oh, my God." Her hand immediately went to her abdomen; she could feel that what had been a firm, rounded mass just that morning was now soft and floppy and smaller than it had been. "What happened to my baby?"

"She's okay," he said gently, running a hand through his daughter's hair. "She's in the NICU but she's stable. Bobby's been keeping me updated. He'll be down to see you soon."

Alex began to cry then, as hard as she could in her weakened state, and John could only continue to stroke her hair as she sobbed herself to sleep.

xxxxxxxxx

"Is that Tucker in there with Murphy?" Rollins asked as they walked back to the squad room, peering around the partially closed blind. "Looks like it's getting pretty heated."

"That's Tucker all right," Fin commented. "Showed up a little after you two went up to the crib. Which, by the way, was about twenty minutes ago. What were you _doing_ up there?"

The blonde blushed crimson at the implication, and Fin only laughed. But the senior detective sobered up quickly when he saw the darkening spot on her face. "You okay, Amanda?"

"Fine," she replied quickly. "My face is gonna hurt for a few days, but I'm fine. No broken bones or loose teeth. What are they all fired up about?"

"The big one is Murphy letting the shooter leave the premises after the incident went down - unfortunately, he's probably right on that one," Fin admitted with a grimace. "That's way out of bounds. The other is the fact that a civilian contractor took the shot."

"That might mitigate the first one a little bit," Amaro mused, "but it also opens up another can of worms." He cringed. "Like how Goren got his hands on my gun. I'm probably going to catch hell for that one."

"I have one officer dead!" Murphy's shout came straight through the glass, immediately silencing all other conversations. "Two more in the hospital! Don't think I don't know how big of a cluster this is! But the two people who are responsible for this disaster are lying in the morgue! What more are you going to accomplish?"

Tucker's response was unheard, and the entire squad exchanged glances. Amanda broke the silence first. "Wow. I didn't realize he could yell like that."

The door banged open, forestalling any further conversation as Tucker stepped out. "IAB will be conducting interviews with all of you, including those who left the premises. Rollins, you're up first."

xxxxxxxxx

"Captain?"

The white-haired man turned at the sound of his name. "Haven't been that for quite some time. Elliot Stabler, how've you been?"

"Doing okay," he replied, shaking the older man's hand. "So, if not 'captain', what should I call you?"

"Jim will do just fine." He smiled, then began walking again, side-by-side with Elliot. "What brings you here? Hope it's nothing serious."

"My wife," he replied, "and she's fine, just needs to stay to help someone out. I'm just bringing her a change of clothes and a shoulder if she needs one."

"Sounds like we're in the same boat, then," the former Captain replied. "That's why I'm here too - not my wife, but an old friend."

By then, they had reached the elevator. They both reached for the same button, and both smiled when they realized they'd gotten in each other's way. Elliot finally pressed the button, and the elevator rose quickly.

The moment they stepped off the elevator, Elliot's attention was fixed on a dark-haired woman standing at the other end of the hall. "Liv!" he called out, almost running towards her.

She lifted her head slowly. "El. You got here fast."

He was still staring, but now his attention was focused on her clothing. "You told me you weren't hurt!"

"I'm not," she said, her words slurred alarmingly. "It's someone else's."

"Are you sure about that?" Jim had come to Elliot's side. "Some of it might be, looks like it's been there awhile, but there's some on your side that looks fresh. How long has it been since you got someone else's blood on you?"

"A - a couple of hours, I guess. Fresh?" she added belatedly. "That doesn't make -" Before she could finish her sentence, her knees buckled and she plunged towards the ground.

"Olivia!" Elliot lunged forward, grabbing hold of her just in time to keep her from hitting the floor. He got his arms around her, but she still sagged limply, her head falling forward. "Olivia, my God! We need help here! Officer down!"

He eased her to the floor and pulled her coat off, an action that confirmed what Jim had suspected. While the front of her shirt had been sprayed with blood, her coat had blocked the spray from coming into contact with any other part of it. And yet, a large patch on the right side was stained dark red with blood that was still wet to the touch. "Damn it, Olivia," he whispered, though the choked sound in his voice made it clear that the words came from a place of concern. "How could you miss this?"

xxxxxxxxx

"Detective Rollins, where were you when you heard the shots?"

"In the hallway. Lieutenant Murphy had asked me to go to the lab and see how the DNA report was coming."

"As far as you know, did the lab have instructions to call you when the process was finished?"

"I don't know about this case specifically, but that is standard procedure."

"So why would your Lieutenant send you to the lab, when they already had instructions to contact you with results?"

"He was concerned it was taking too long."

"So he was impatient."

"We all were," she said a little defensively. "Without it, the case was shaky - one voice ID and a lot of circumstantial evidence. We were concerned that without the DNA to link him to the crimes, he might get bail at arraignment and either disappear or kill again."

"So you heard the shots and then what did you do?"

"I started to run towards the stairwell, thinking I could take cover in there, but he came out of observation and got in my way. Before I had time to react, he pistol-whipped me across the face hard enough to knock me down. He held his gun on me while he took mine out of the holster and threw it into a trash can. Then he pulled me up by my hair, pulled me against him, and put his gun to my head. He made me walk into the squad room with him."

"What happened next?"

"It's all kind of a blur," she admitted. "I heard voices yelling, and then I felt him take the gun away from my head and start to turn. I knew I had to get some distance from him if I wanted a chance of getting free, so I threw all my weight into staying planted. I heard shots, and then his grip loosened and I knew it was then or never. I grabbed his arm and pulled it away from my body, and then I ran away from him. I saw Amaro reaching out towards me and so I ran to him. The next thing I remember is hearing shots fired right over my head. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was the perp who'd been shot."

"Okay, Detective Rollins. Thank you."

She gaped at him. "That's it?"

He cracked a rare smile. "Your Lieutenant's story matches what you just told me, and it's clear to me that you didn't have a lot of agency in this situation. Go put some ice on your face before the swelling gets any worse, and tell Detective Amaro I want to see him immediately."

xxxxxxxxx

All she remembered was that one moment she'd been standing in the hallway outside ICU, watching Elliot walk towards her, and the next she was lying in a hospital bed.

She started to sit up and immediately felt dizzy. As she let herself fall back against the pillows, she saw her husband sitting beside her. "What happened?"

"You passed out," he told her gently. "You weren't as fine as you claimed. You had a bullet in your side, and by the time I got to you, you'd lost a lot of blood."

Olivia frowned, confused. "How's that possible? There weren't that many shots fired, and I know where all of the ones I was in range of went."

"Apparently not entirely," he said with a light chuckle that he knew sounded forced. "Your friend Bobby filled us in after you collapsed. He said you were standing right behind the cop who was shot, and she had a through-and-through to her arm. They think the bullet must've hit you after it went through her."

She glanced down, seeing the bandage on her right side. "I didn't feel a thing. I really thought all the blood was hers." She tried to sit again, and this time Elliot reached out to help her up, sliding a pillow behind her back to support her. "How bad?"

"The injury itself wasn't too bad. But by the time the doctors got to you, you were in hypovolemic shock. They had to give you fluids and blood." He smiled then despite himself, tapping his left arm. "I told them to bypass the blood bank."

"You do look a little pale," she teased weakly.

"You're one to talk," he countered, but his voice was serious. "You barely had any color left by the time you collapsed. Scared the hell out of me."

"I'm sorry," she said sincerely, knowing he was thinking about Kathy, about the way she had died from horrific gunshot wounds. "I really didn't know...there was so much adrenaline, so much stress and fear, I never felt any pain."

"I know," he reassured her. "But next time, I'm not taking your word for it that everything's fine."

"Deal. So, when do I get out of here?"

"Tomorrow. Doctor wants to keep you overnight to make sure everything's stabilized. I've already asked Lizzie and Kathleen to babysit."

"I'm the one stuck in the hospital," she reminded him. "You can go home."

"And leave you here alone? I don't think so." He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. "You're stuck with me, Olivia Benson, and don't you forget it."

xxxxxxxxx

Alex was sitting, propped up by the adjustable hospital bed, when Bobby walked in. The TV was on, but it was clear she wasn't really paying attention.

He sat beside her and gathered her up into his arms. She buried her head in his chest, reaching her good left arm around his back to clutch at his shirt. "The baby?" she whispered after a prolonged silence.

"Sarah's doing fine. "He slid one arm off from around her, reaching into his pocket, and handed her his phone, which was already cued up to a photo. "Look. That's our baby."

Alex's jaw dropped at the rush of feelings the image conjured up. Even when she'd seen Nate for the first time, she hadn't felt this incredible sense of connection. "Oh, she's beautiful."

"She is," he agreed, running his hand through her hair. "Beautiful just like her mommy."

"Not just me," Alex objected gently. "Look at all that dark hair. She doesn't get that from my side of the family." She ran her hand through his graying curls. "But oh, God, all the machines..."

He pulled her close again. "I know it's scary. I'm scared too. But everyone I've talked to is optimistic about her chances. She's in good physical shape, and besides, she's a fighter. She's Alex Eames' daughter, after all."

For some reason, Alex burst into tears at that. Bobby began rubbing her back, concerned. "What's wrong, sweetheart?"

"Her mommy wasn't a fighter when it mattered," she answered bitterly. "And to top it off, she doesn't have the sense God gave a goose."

It was a phrase that Bobby had heard Katherine Eames use a few times, and he'd always found it funny. But Alex's clear distress precluded any hint of humor in the situation. "What are you talking about?"

"This is my fault," she sobbed. "All of it. It's my fault she's in an incubator hooked up to machines instead of safe inside me where she belongs."

"No, no, Alex," he soothed. "It's Johnson's fault. He's the one who fired at a pregnant woman."

But Alex was shaking her head. "I started the whole mess. I was only in the squad room in the first place because I decided to walk through a parking garage alone without paying attention. I let him get the drop on me. I let him -"

"You didn't _let_ him do anything," Bobby said firmly. "He forced you. I heard the statement you gave Olivia. You fought like hell, and even if you hadn't, he had no right to do what he did."

"Well, he didn't care much about that, did he?" she snapped. "And apparently, I didn't fight hard enough."

Bobby winced internally, remembering the bruises and scratches that had marred Alex's body after the assault. He knew she'd given that fight everything she had and then some. "What happened to you is awful, but it wasn't your fault, and neither is what happened this morning."

Another sob. "I'm a mother, I'm supposed to protect my baby, and I couldn't even do that right when she was inside my body. I'm a cop trained in self-defense, and I let some scumbag rape me in a parking garage stairwell. If I hadn't let that happen, I wouldn't have been in the squad room this morning and been shot, and Sarah would be able to develop naturally and be born when she was ready."

The uncomfortable feeling of eyes boring into his back caused Bobby to turn his head, prompting Alex to look up over his shoulder to determine what had caught his attention. When she saw who was standing there, she almost felt her blood freeze. "Dad -"

Without a word, he turned and walked from the room, leaving Alex to collapse in Bobby's arms in a fresh round of sobs.

xxxxxxxxx

"Detective Amaro, after the shooting started, you took cover beside former detective Robert Goren?"

"That's right. We had just been interrogating the suspect and we were standing close together, so when we heard the shots, we both took cover behind the same desk."

"Where was your service weapon at this time?"

 _I was right. He's not happy that Goren got his hands on my gun._ "In my hand. I pulled it out of the holster in case I had a chance to take a shot."

"But you didn't."

"No. When he came into the squad room, he was holding Am - Detective Rollins hostage. I didn't have a clear shot, and even if I had, he had the gun at point-blank range to her head. If he'd been shot, his finger could have contracted on the trigger and that would have almost certainly been fatal to her."

"I understand that." Tucker's voice softened just a fraction, clearly recognizing the truth of Amaro's words. "But during the struggle, there came a time when Detective Rollins freed herself from the suspect. What did you do then?"

"I stood up to help her." No way he was making it easy on the IAB lieutenant. "I thought she might be disoriented from shock or fear, so I reached out to show her a clear way to safety. Johnson's back was turned to me, I didn't think he'd even see me. She ran towards me, and I pulled her under the desk."

"What did you do with your weapon when you stood up to help her?"

"I set it down on the floor. I knew she was likely to run towards me, and I didn't want there to be any chance that she'd get in a potential line of fire."

"So you set your weapon down within reach of a civilian."

"A retired cop."

"Who is currently a civilian."

"Look!" Amaro's temper finally boiled over. "What is it you want me to have done? You weren't there! The whole thing went down in a matter of seconds! I've already explained to you why I didn't want to keep it in my hands, and under the desk was the most guarded place to put it. If I'd put it anywhere else, it would've been easier access for Johnson, and I don't know about you, but to me putting it within reach of a retired cop seemed a lot safer than putting it where a serial killer might get to it!"

"Did you consider your holster?"

"It's a safety holster. I didn't want to take the chance of losing valuable time trying to draw it again."

"Better than letting a civilian get his hands on it."

"A former cop!" Amaro exploded. "And yes, there _is_ a difference. You don't lose your training in four years. He understood exactly how volatile the situation was and what all the moving pieces were. So yeah, I did feel more comfortable leaving my gun within reach of him than I would for an ordinary civilian, but only because I knew he knew better than to do anything stupid with it."

"He fired two shots into a man's back."

"A man who was holding a gun on a pregnant Lieutenant he'd already shot twice. That's a textbook example of threat of imminent harm to a third party. If I'd had the shot, I would've taken it." He shook his head disbelievingly. "Don't expect me to be sorry he's dead. Okay, the way he died was a little unorthodox -"

"Unorthodox," Tucker repeated in disbelief.

Amaro ignored him. "But once he started waving a gun around a room full of cops, there was practically no chance of him getting out of the building alive. If Goren hadn't done it, someone else would have."

"But someone else didn't." Tucker turned off the tape recorder. "Think about that. You're dismissed."

xxxxxxxxx

"Knock knock, look who's here!"

Olivia looked up at the familiar voice to see not only Kathleen standing in the doorway, but also Elizabeth, who was holding hands with Eli while her older sister had Noah cradled in her arms.

The toddler reached out as soon as he saw the familiar face. "Mama!"

The brunette woman was momentarily struck speechless. Noah had started talking a few months earlier, but, perhaps because of the chaotic situation he'd been born into, they hadn't yet been able to coax family identifiers out of him. "Yes, Noah," she whispered in a watery voice. "Mama's here."

She reached her arms out and Kathleen placed the boy in them. As she cradled him to her chest, Eli took off running towards the bed. Elliot intercepted him just in time to keep him from plowing into Olivia's healing right side, swinging him over to the uninjured side before setting him down. "Be careful, Eli. Mommy's hurt."

He threw an arm over her, this time avoiding the visible bandages. Olivia shifted Noah to one arm so she could reach out to her stepdaughters. "Thank you both so much."

Elizabeth smiled. "When Dad called and told us what happened, we thought some family healing time might be in order. Besides, they could tell we were worried and it was upsetting them."

"Certainly better than bringing flowers," Kathleen added with a smile mirroring her sister's. "Just so you know, we would've come even if we hadn't been bringing the boys. We're glad you're okay."

"Really glad," Elizabeth added. "I don't know if we say this enough, but Kathleen and I couldn't stop talking in the car about how worried we were and how much we care about you. You may not be our mom but we like having you in the family."

"Damn," Olivia whispered, choked. "If this is what I get for getting shot -"

"Don't go there," Elliot said in a tone that was only half-joking.

"Tell you what," Kathleen added with a smile. "We'll try to show more of this stuff without needing an inciting event, and you try not to get shot. Deal?"

Olivia grinned. "Deal." She opened her arm to her side. "Now both of you come here, you each deserve a hug for this!"

xxxxxxxxx

Bobby only had to catch a glimpse of the man he'd greatly respected only hours earlier before he unloaded on him full-force. "What the hell was that?"

John didn't even turn. "What was what?"

"You _ran out on her_ ," he replied sharply. "You looked her right in the eyes and then you ran out on her. If you're going to be unsympathetic, the least you could do is not show it quite so openly.

The older man finally looked up at him, pain etched into the lines of his face. "God, no. I'm not unsympathetic. I just couldn't - I couldn't look at her without thinking about some piece of scum -" He couldn't even give voice to the images in his head. "Did they ever find out who did it?"

Bobby nodded gravely. "The same man who shot her today." Seeing the obvious agony John was in was causing some of his own anger to ebb. "And he's dead. I shot him to stop him from killing Alex."

"That's good," John said on an exhale. "If he was alive, I'd have to kill him myself. No one gets away with hurting my baby girl like that."

" _You_ hurt her." Bobby's tone was soft, the words no longer intended to wound, but he had to make John understand the impact of his actions. "She knows you couldn't bear to look at her, but she doesn't know why. She's still blaming herself, and after seeing your reaction, I think she thinks you blame her too."

"No!" he replied, horrified. "I could never!"

"Then you need to tell her that," Bobby said firmly. "You're the only one she'll believe it from."

He nodded, turning back to walk towards Alex's room. "How is she?"

"Asleep right now, or I wouldn't have left her alone. Don't wake her, please." In that moment, he allowed his girlfriend's father to see that he, too, was horrified over what had happened to her. "She hasn't been sleeping well as it is."

" _My baby_ ," he whispered in a pained voice before turning back to Bobby with fire flashing in his eyes. "You'll never know how grateful I am to you for saving my daughter's life. But I wish there hadn't been imminent danger. I wish he'd had a chance to suffer first."

xxxxxxxxx

"Detective Tutuola, just a few questions. You weren't directly involved in the incident, but you did see it take place, is that correct?"

"You know it is, why ask me?"

"What was your immediate reaction to hearing the shots?"

"Well, it took me a second to realize what it was I heard. But then I yelled for everyone to get down and I ran for cover behind a filing cabinet. I pulled my gun and had it at the ready, but when he came in, he had Rollins and it was too risky to take the shot, so I just kept him in my sights in case I got a chance to take it."

"And when Rollins was no longer being held by Johnson?"

"Right when she got free, they were both moving around unpredictably, and I didn't want to chance missing him and hitting Rollins or anyone else. I was a split-second away from pulling the trigger when Goren took him out."

"You would have taken a lethal shot?"

Fin nodded. "I knew I might only have one. If the first bullet hadn't taken him down, he might still have been able to hurt or kill Eames - or Benson, for that matter, she was in his line of fire too. I'm fully aware that a kill shot is a last resort, but we were out of options by then."

"So your perspective on Goren's actions -"

"I know we'd rather not have civilians shooting people in our squadrooms, and generally I agree with that perspective. But in this case, it didn't change anything. If Goren hadn't taken Johnson out, someone else would have. I wasn't the only one taking aim at him." He shrugged. "That's all I can tell you."

xxxxxxxxx

A hand was running gently through her hair, over and over. At first, she thought it was Bobby, but the hand was much too small to be one of his. She opened her eyes slowly, looking over to see who it was. "Dad?"

"Yeah, honey, I'm here." It was the gentle voice of her childhood, the one he had used when she'd come to him after a nightmare. "And I'm sorry."

"What?"

He leaned forward to press a kiss to her forehead. "I'm sorry for how I reacted yesterday when I heard what had happened to you. Alex -"

She turned her head away from him, wishing she was strong enough to turn her entire body on her side. "It's okay, I get it. I'm not too fond of me right now either."

She felt his hand run gently over the back of her neck. "Alex, no. It wasn't your fault."

"How do you know?" she replied harshly. "You weren't there."

"I didn't have to be. Tell me, Alex, did you think it was Sean's fault when your Aunt hit him?"

The suggestion so stunned her that she whipped her head back around to look at him. "Of course not! She was a mean drunk, he just happened to be in exactly the wrong place when she finally lost it."

He nodded somberly. "Exactly. What happened to Sean was not his fault, and what happened to you is not yours." He began stroking her hair again. "Yesterday, when I heard, I was just so upset at the idea that something so awful had happened to you that I didn't think before I ran out. I realize now how that must have looked to you, but I'm not angry with you, or disgusted, or anything else you might think I am. I'm just so sorry for what you've had to go through. And I'd kill the bastard if he wasn't already dead."

Tears jumped to her eyes in spite of her best efforts. "You really mean that?"

He reached forward and carefully gathered his daughter close, knowing she couldn't sit up under her own power yet, and held her as though she was still a small child. "Every word, honey. Every damn word."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was actually a really fun chapter to write, it gave me a chance to explore so many different angles.
> 
> My characterization of Tucker is based on what he became once he was more than an occasional guest character. In his first few appearances, he was a jerk, but later he became more of another part of the machine, if a part that the SVU cops didn't always like. My personal opinion is that while no one likes to be questioned after the fact for their judgments in the heat of the moment, accountability is a necessary part of any police department and IAB and their real-life counterparts are a part of that. Unlike in L&O, the run-of-the-mill officers aren't always going to hold each other accountable (even in the show, many of the cops who aren't main characters are known to cover for each other) and for this reason I like that SVU tuned down the rhetoric of IAB being annoying obstructionists (Tucker has certainly been a valuable character in the last few seasons!).
> 
> As for John Eames - I've written a few SVU fanfics, and one of the recurring themes I've noticed in my own writing is that the close family/friend's reaction to a disclosure is always a supportive one (Goren with Eames earlier in this story, the squad with Rollins in Unreasonable Doubt, Elliot with Olivia in Within Me, Without You and Pulling Back the Cover and with Elizabeth in Close to Home). While I think that's the best reaction one can hope for, and that it's understandable for these characters given their backgrounds, I also wanted to lend some space on the page to the experiences of those who haven't always received positive reactions. Reading survivors' stories (not for fanfiction reasons, research for a few college papers and a community theater play I co-authored), I've read about family members who were so stunned to hear what had happened to their loved one that they reacted in a way that inadvertently hurt the victim. So that's John in this story, well-intentioned but hit with a bombshell he doesn't know how to handle. (Obviously, there are people who react even worse, but that doesn't fit the characterization in this story.)
> 
> Alex's aunt who hit her brother comes from the CI episode Vacancy.


	15. Homecoming

The sound in the doorway that attracted Alex's attention this time wasn't a footstep; it was something best described as a squeak. She looked over to see Olivia sitting in a wheelchair with a toddler on her lap, a wheelchair being pushed by another child so small that all she could see was the top of a blonde head.

Olivia smiled. "Hey. I just came to see how you're doing."

"And brought the brigade, I see." Alex smiled back for a moment before becoming serious. "Are _you_ okay? Bobby said something had happened."

Olivia glanced at Bobby, fast asleep in a chair beside the bed, and then back to Alex. "Nothing serious. A night in the hospital and a week recovering at home, and they say I'll be good as new. I'm only in this chair because the doctor insisted; I can walk. How about you?"

"My stomach hurts a lot right now and I'm going to need physio on my arm, but my eventual prognosis is the same as yours, it's just going to take me a little longer to get there." She was still smiling, but it was more forced.

Olivia wasn't fooled. "And the rest of it?"

Alex's smile dropped away completely. "I'm - I'm working on it. It hit me pretty hard yesterday, after everything that happened, that what happened to me yesterday, my being shot, the early c-section, all tracked back to me having been - to what happened in the garage," she edited quickly, not wanting to be explicit with the children in the room. "It's not easy. Even with what everyone's been telling me, I can't help thinking about all the things I could've done differently that could have prevented that, which would have prevented all this."

Privately, Olivia couldn't help but think that it likely wouldn't have mattered. From all of their research, it had quickly become clear that Sebastian had very deliberately targeted Alex and if not the parking garage, he most likely would have attacked her somewhere else. But she also knew this wasn't the time or place to rely on reason. She wheeled herself up next to Alex's bed and took her hand. "I know how easy it is to look back on a traumatic experience and think of all the things you could have done differently. Believe me, I spent a long time in that space after Lewis. But what I eventually had to accept was that there's no way I could have known any of that beforehand. How could I have known that he would be waiting in my apartment? And how could you have known that someone was out to hurt you?"

"I - I couldn't, I guess."

"Exactly." At that moment, Noah shifted in her lap, letting out a little whine. "Sorry. Little kids always know how to ruin a moment, don't they?"

"I don't mind." Alex was smiling again, much to Olivia's relief. "I love kids. It'd be hard not to, with a big family like mine." She reached out gingerly, lightly tickling Noah under his chin and making him laugh. "Looks like your natives are getting restless though."

"They are at that, which means I should probably get them home before I have a riot on my hands. There's just one thing I want to give you first, if that's okay?"

"What is it?"

She picked a pen and paper up off the nightstand and scribbled down a name and phone number. "My therapist. I know how much cops hate therapy, God knows I did at first, but he's really one of the best. You should call him."

xxxxxxxxx

Bobby was startled awake when his cell phone rang. He reached over and answered it quickly, before it could wake Alex in the hospital bed beside him. "Hello?"

" _Bobby!_ "

"Declan?"

" _I knew you could do it, my boy! I knew it!_ "

"What the hell are you doing calling me?"

" _Why, Bobby!_ " Now the older man sounded affronted. " _I heard what you did. You killed Sebastian! Did you really think I could let that go without a congratulations?_ "

He swallowed hard, suddenly feeling nauseated. "I don't want one."

" _Nonsense! Don't you see how perfect this is? I killed Nicole for you, and you killed Sebastian for me!_ "

Any concern he had about noise was instantly forgotten. "I didn't do it for you, you son of a bitch! Unlike you, I don't go around killing people to free others of their burdens!" He slammed the phone shut and hurled it across the room.

But it didn't hit the floor, or the wall. Instead, it connected squarely with the chest of the man who had just walked in the door, who managed to react just fast enough to stop the phone from dropping. "Whoa. Was it something I said?"

"Something the guy on the phone said," Bobby corrected, taking his phone back from Mike Logan. "I didn't even see you there."

A smile tugged at the corners of the newcomer's mouth. "I gathered as much. I could hear you yelling from the other side of the door."

"Damn it," Bobby hissed suddenly, turning his attention to his girlfriend. Sure enough, her eyes were open. "Damn it, Alex. I'm sorry."

"You didn't wake me up," she assured him, "the phone did. But once I heard you say Declan's name, I though you might want to handle that one without interruption."

"Declan as in Gage? That psycho's making trouble again?"

"Long story," Alex replied as she pressed the button to raise her bed to a sitting position. "What brings you here, Mike?"

"Word gets around. I heard you'd been shot, I wanted to make sure you were okay." He leaned over the bed, giving Alex a feather-light hug. "You look like you're in one piece, I suppose that's a good sign. How are you feeling?"

"I'm sore, but I'll live."

He grinned. "I should've known. Bobby, how's she doing?"

That got chuckles from both of them as Bobby responded. "She really is doing well. If everything stays good, she could be discharged by the day after tomorrow."

"What?" Alex said in mock offense. "You don't trust me?"

He laughed now too. "Alex, honey, there are three people in this room right now, and not one of them is any good at giving accurate personal injury reports."

"Three...so that includes you?" Bobby teased, then promptly cringed when he realized what he'd just said. _Of course he'd downplay his injuries._

But Logan didn't seem fazed in the least. "Including me. Did I ever tell you how I got banged up by a suspect who was mad that I confiscated his burrito?"

"His _burrito_?" Alex asked incredulously.

"Oh, yeah. This was back when I was at the 2-7, before the whole Staten Island thing. We were having one hell of a day, we'd just caught our fourth murder case since the start of shift..."

Alex settled back against her pillows, letting Mike regale her with the antics of the heavily intoxicated suspect. The laugh was exactly what she needed after the hell the previous day had been.

She started to bolt upright when the door opened, but relaxed back against her pillows when she realized she knew the latest arrival. Bobby smiled, but Mike's gaze was frozen on the newcomer.

"Hey," Carolyn said as the door swung open. "I brought you -" But the rest of the sentence died on her lips as she saw who was in the room with Bobby and Alex. "Mike?"

He swallowed a couple of times, still staring. "Hey."

The silence and the stares dragged on until Bobby finally cleared his throat loudly. "Do you two need to be alone?"

Mike began laughing while Carolyn ducked her head in embarrassment. "Sorry," she said over the sound of her former partner's laughter. "That was just...unexpected."

"I can see that," Alex replied wryly.

"Anyway." Carolyn held out the large gift bag she was carrying, placing it on the edge of Alex's bed. "This is for you."

"Thank you. You didn't have to get me anything." She peeked over the top of the bag, seeing two boxes inside. "What is all this?"

"The box with the green ribbon is yours," Carolyn explained, beaming. "There are some chocolates in there, skin lotion, bubble bath, your basic self-pampering kit. The one with the pink ribbon is for Sarah."

"That's so sweet!" Alex pulled her friend into a one-armed hug.

"Wait, wait," Mike broke in. "You included a gift for someone else in a bag for Alex, and she thinks it's sweet? Who exactly is this Sarah?"

Carolyn looked from Alex to Bobby. "You didn't tell him?"

"It didn't come up," he replied before filling their bemused friend in on their newfound relationship and the unexpected child that had come with it.

By the time they'd fully caught him up, his mouth was hanging open. "You two have a kid? How old?"

"Well -" Bobby glanced at his watch. "About an hour short of one day."

Mike looked from him back to Alex as the pieces finally clicked together. "Oh, damn, I'm sorry. How's she doing?"

"She's holding her own," Alex replied. "The bullet missed her, thank God. Bobby and my dad have both been going back and forth to the NICU all day."

"That's good," he said warmly. "If you want me to take a turn, though, you just let me know. I know I'm not exactly the type who people want around their kids, but I think I can manage a check-in on one baby, especially one surrounded by nurses."

Alex just smiled, shaking her head. Mike might have a reputation as an angry man to be watched out for, but she'd known him long enough to know that underneath all of that brashness ran a soft streak a mile wide. "You'd better learn to manage," she told him mock-sternly, "because I expect to see you around more than every so often."

He grinned now too. "You mean that?"

"You bet. And I don't think I'm the only one either." She looked pointedly at Carolyn, who blushed a little at having been caught staring at her former partner. "In fact, I think Bobby and I will be okay right now." She reached into the bag, opening up the pink-ribboned box and finding exactly what she was looking for: a small stuffed rabbit. "Why don't you two go take this up to Sarah, and while you're at it use the time to catch up? Just one thing," she added to Mike, smiling. "If you see my dad up there, give him a minute of your time, okay? He still talks about how much he admires you from that councilman thing."

As they stepped out, already starting to navigate the first few awkward moments of a reunion eight years in the making, Bobby turned to Alex with a smile of his own. "That was subtle."

She shrugged off his sarcasm. "It was needed. You saw the way they were looking at each other."

"You're turning into a romantic," he teased.

She reached up, gently running a hand over his face. "It worked for us, didn't it?"

xxxxxxxxx

"You could've knocked me over with a feather when I found out you retired," Carolyn was saying. "I was sure they'd have to drag you out kicking and screaming when you hit mandatory."

"I used to think the same," he admitted. "Especially after I finally got off Staten Island. And I still loved the job. It was all the Department and inter-office politics that finally got to be too much."

She laughed now. "Okay, that I can believe."

"And for what it's worth," Mike added, "you going back to the FBI was not exactly something I expected either, especially after everything you said in the Garrett case."

"That one wasn't on me," she protested. "Turned out one of my old cases wasn't as closed as I thought. It took me over a year to finish that one up, and by then the open spot in Major Case had been filled and it didn't seem like that was going to change anytime soon. So since I didn't have an NYPD spot to go back to, the Feds held onto me." She shrugged. "It wasn't so bad, really. I started being able to do work more like what I did at Major Case. Once I didn't have to sit behind a desk and ask three supervisors to talk to someone across the hall, I actually started liking my job."

"That's good," he replied sincerely. "So where are you working now?"

"I'm with Alex at JTTF," she said with a smile. "What about you? Cop or not, I can't see you just sitting back doing nothing."

"You're right about that," he admitted. "Actually, I'm working with Deakins - you heard he went into the private sector after he left?" Carolyn nodded, and he continued. "Well, something like eighty percent of his staff is former NYPD, so when he heard I was leaving the department, he asked if I wanted a job."

"That must be nice for you. You still get to do the good work without all the NYPD mess."

"I didn't expect to like it as much as I do. But it's been six years and I'm still there. I'll tell you the one thing I don't miss, besides the politics, is the hours. I can actually know that I'm going to be working the hours I'm supposed to and not be called out in the middle of the night. I _can_ stay late if I have a tough case to chase down, but I don't have to."

"Now you're making _me_ envious," she teased, but then her smile dropped away as she looked closely at him. "Have you been staying late a lot recently?"

"No," he replied, bemused. "Why?"

"Because you look like you did after we'd worked a case for several days straight," she said bluntly. " _Something_ is keeping you up at night. And you look run-down enough that I'm going to guess it's not a positive something."

"Thanks," he said sarcastically.

"Quit deflecting," she chided. "I know you saw me staring. From a purely aesthetic perspective, I have no complaints. But I can also tell there's something serious going on in your life right now." She fixed him with a warm, inviting gaze. "You want to talk about it?"

The truth was, he did. Until now, there hadn't been anyone he felt comfortable talking to, but looking into Carolyn's eyes, the past eight years seemed to melt away. She was the same woman who had supported him after one of the worst days of his career. But unlike that incident, she wasn't a part of this one, and he didn't want to burden her. "It's kind of a long story."

"I have time." She stepped in front of him, halting both of their forward progress. "And I don't think Alex and Bobby expect us back for awhile."

It was an impossibly tempting offer. "Not here," he said finally. "I can't, not with all these people."

She could see the truth of his words in his eyes. "Okay. Let's find a place."

xxxxxxxxx

"I've got it," Elizabeth called as the doorbell rang. The door creaked open, and then she spoke again. "Can I help you?"

"I'm looking for Sergeant Benson."

As soon as she heard the man's voice, Olivia was very glad she'd insisted her husband take the children to the park after getting her settled. She'd only made the suggestion because they'd been bouncing off the walls, but it would serve her well here too. She might have made her peace with Tucker, but she doubted Elliot would be so forgiving. "Let him in, Lizzie, it's okay." She reached for the remote to turn the TV off.

The Lieutenant stepped into the den as Elizabeth headed up the stairs. "You don't seem surprised to see me."

"Amaro gave me a heads-up," she admitted. "But even if he hadn't, there was a shootout in our squadroom. It's not exactly an unexpected turn of events that IAB wants to interview me. Sit down." She indicated a chair.

"In a hurry to get this over with?"

"For both our sake," she replied with a small smile. "My husband's out with our sons right now, I don't think he'd be thrilled about you being here."

"Fair enough," he admitted. "So let's get to it. Where were you when the first shots were fired?"

"The interview room next to Lieutenant Murphy's office with Lieutenant Eames."

"Who was there because..."

"Because she was the victim of a rape, and we believed we had the suspect in custody. She had previously stated that she believed she could identify her attacker's voice, and so we brought her in to make the ID."

"She was to identify the man who had raped her. And she brought a weapon along?"

"She never tried to hide that fact." Olivia couldn't help becoming a little defensive. "She's a cop, it was a work day, she's in the habit of carrying. And I took it from her before she made the identification - and no, that doesn't mean I thought she was a threat in any way. I just wanted to make sure everything was done by the book. It's the same reason I didn't allow her to speak with her former partner, despite the fact that he was present, until after the lineup had been conducted."

"So you returned the weapon to her after she made the identification."

"Not immediately. She was very upset and I wanted to give her a chance to calm down first - not that I actually thought she'd hurt herself, but again, procedure. Bobby Goren sat with her for a while until he was needed, that calmed her down a lot, and then I sat with her. It was only when I thought she was close to ready to leave that I gave it back to her. I figured that once she was ready to go, she'd want to leave as quickly as possible. It was maybe a minute after that that we heard the shots fired."

"What did you do then?"

"At first, we just took cover inside the interview room. But then we heard Johnson making threats against someone - Detective Rollins, although I didn't know that at the time. We looked through the blinds and saw that his back was to the interview room. Eames opened the door and approached him from behind, I followed her. She raised her weapon and ordered him to drop his. He turned his weapon on us, but in doing so, he opened enough distance between himself and Rollins that Eames was able to take a shot. She hit him but not significantly enough to incapacitate him. At the same time, he fired two shots, both of which hit her - I also took a bullet from a through-and-through, but I didn't realize that at the time. She fell backwards and I caught her. He turned the gun on us - specifically on her - again. I couldn't get at my weapon without him seeing me, so I tried to cover her with my body. I heard the shots but I didn't feel anything. It took me a minute to realize that Johnson was the one who'd been shot."

"By Robert Goren."

"Yes."

"To your knowledge, what is the relationship between Robert Goren and Lieutenant Eames?"

"If you're asking if they're romantically involved, the answer is yes. And they have a child together."

"How long have you known about this relationship?"

She thought for a second. "Um, right around the time Goren started working this case with us. Lieutenant Eames is someone I consider a friend, and I saw them together in the parking garage. The depth of their connection to each other was obvious."

"And yet, you and Lieutenant Murphy allowed Goren to continue working the Sebastian case even after it became clear that his girlfriend's rape was directly connected to the case in question."

"Yes." Olivia's tone was firm, unapologetic. "And I stand by that decision. Even with his personal stake in the case, Goren was an invaluable part of the investigation. He was the one who was able to discern an essential, but very much obscured, fact in the case that led us to our suspect."

"The suspect he later killed."

"It was a matter of life or death," she said firmly. "I would have shot him if I'd been able to get to my gun."

"I understand that, but the fact remains that _you_ didn't shoot him. The man with every reason to want revenge did."

"No. I firmly believe that he wouldn't have shot unless he felt it was the only option."

"Believe based on what?"

 _His personality_ came to mind, but Olivia brushed that aside. Tucker would want something concrete, and she had that to give. "A conversation we had a few months ago. He was talking about a serial killer he once hunted, who was murdered before she could be caught, and he said that he wished she could have been stopped the legal way - meaning tracking her down and putting her in prison. And this was someone else who hurt him in a personal way. He's not the type of person who goes around taking revenge on people."

"Let's move on to after the shooting. Goren ran over to you, to check on Eames."

"Like I said, all he was concerned about was her. And he put the gun down first."

"Right. And then he picked her up and the three of you left the scene. I understand Eames and you; she was injured, and it was quicker to take her in a police vehicle than wait for EMS which meant someone had to drive. But you let - scratch that, you _encouraged_ the shooter to leave the scene?"

"He wasn't going to disappear. He had just seen his pregnant girlfriend shot, nearly murdered, and he was terrified he was going to lose both her and the baby."

Tucker stopped writing in mid-sentence. "She was pregnant? This child they have together -"

"Was born yesterday by c-section and is currently in intensive care," she confirmed. "Eames and the baby are both doing fine, but that was anything but a certainty in the immediate aftermath of the shooting."

"Okay, so that's a more compelling reason for him to leave. That still doesn't answer the question of why you allowed it."

There were more than a few answers to that one too, and again she chose the one that was most likely to be palatable to IAB. "As you said, Eames needed medical help immediately, and I couldn't carry her myself. Given the fact that she was recently the victim of a rape, I was concerned that she might not be okay with being carried by another member of the unit. Even if she had tolerated it, panic could have raised her heart rate and blood pressure significantly, which would have caused her to start bleeding more quickly. It was clear that Goren's touch wasn't bothering her at all; if anything, it was helping to keep her calm. I didn't feel that it was wise to spend time on other possibilities that had a much higher risk of problems." She looked Tucker directly in the eyes. "My priority was the victim, just as it always is."

"All right, Sergeant," he said after a long moment. "That'll do it for now. We'll be in touch."

Olivia couldn't see the entryway from her position on the couch, but she heard the door click shut. A few moments later, she heard Elizabeth come down the stairs and then saw her in the doorway to the den. "Who was that?"

"Just someone investigating the shooting," she said as casually as possible. "Do me one favor, though, and don't mention this to your dad. That's one conversation he and I have to have on our own."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bet you didn't think that conversation between Benson and Goren would end up being important! Surprise!
> 
> This episode references the original L&O series episodes Mayhem (see: burrito-wielding maniac) and Pride and the CI episodes Stress Position and To the Bone.


	16. Interlude

"This wasn't a bad idea," Mike commented as he sat down in the small room. "I didn't know hospitals had this kind of thing."

"It's usually for patients or families who've gotten bad news," Carolyn explained. "I...may have fed that nurse a few tidbits of information that weren't as connected as I made them seem."

"Like what?"

"Oh, that we had a close friend who was seriously injured and that we needed a private place to talk. It's not my fault if she assumed one was related to the other."

He grinned. "No, not your fault at all."

She grew serious, coming to sit down on the other chair in the corner where Mike had settled himself. "Do you want to tell me now?"

"Yes," he whispered. "But I don't...I don't know how..."

"Just start at the beginning," she urged gently. "Once you start, it'll be easier to keep going."

"It's this girl," he said finally. "And I don't mean - I mean an actual girl, a little kid. I found her wandering down the street when I was walking home one day in March, and...and she was almost naked, covered in bruises and blood so I went over to help her, and she looked up at me and...damn, those eyes. It was like looking into myself at that age." He shook his head slowly as if trying to clear away the images. "You know...you know that I can never forget about what my mother did. I have to live with the memories, so I've found ways to - to tuck them away so I can live my life. Sometimes, they come out on certain cases, you remember."

She nodded sadly, furious with herself all over again for what she'd done on that first big case they'd worked together. She had figured out partway through that Mike had a similar background to one of the perpetrators in the case, but it wasn't until she had pushed him on it in front of the suspect that she had realized how bad things had been for him. She had been beyond shocked that he had been willing to give her a second chance; she hadn't been half so lenient on herself. _I dragged those memories out of him._

"But even after the cases," he was saying, "I was able to push them aside again after a few days. But not this time. I don't know if it's because I'm still getting calls every so often as a witness on the case or if it's something else entirely, but it's been months, and I still see that little girl every time I close my eyes, and then that brings back every memory I saw reflected in her little face. If I even get to sleep less than three hours after I go to bed, I'm up four hours later from a nightmare. I haven't slept through the night two days in a row since the day I first saw her."

"Oh, Mike," she said softly, her voice full of compassion. "No wonder you're tired. Fighting with those memories every night for almost three months would wear anyone out."

"There's more," he said, and then immediately cringed. _Why are you telling her this? You'll ruin any chance you have with her for sure._ But the words wouldn't stop; they just tumbled out. "More than...than even you know about. My mother wasn't...wasn't the only one who hurt me. There was this priest at my parents' church, Father Joe. I thought I could trust him. But when I was ten -" He stopped, swallowing hard, refusing to cry here in front of Carolyn.

He heard her sharp intake of breath. "My God."

"That little girl...as soon as I got a good look at her, I could tell she hadn't just been beaten up. She...I think she'd been raped. And even though it wasn't...he didn't do _that_...it started those memories churning through my mind too." He shook his head again. "I know, it's crazy. What he did to me is nothing compared to what happened to that girl -"

"Stop it," Carolyn said suddenly, so firmly that his head shot up to look at her.

"I'm sorry," he replied immediately. _Are you crazy, Mike? Of course she didn't want to hear that._ "I shouldn't have said anything."

"No, Mike, that's not what I meant," she said more gently. "I'm talking about minimizing what happened to you. You're right, what that girl went through was terrible. But so was what _you_ went through." She reached out slowly, laying her hand on top of his where it rested on the arm of the chair. "If that's what's going through your head, I can see why you haven't been able to sleep."

Her hand felt good on his, so much better than he ever would have believed a simple touch could feel. Without any conscious intent, he turned his own hand over to clasp hers. "I missed you," he admitted.

She could hear the subtext as clearly as if he'd spoken it aloud. He didn't want her to leave. "I missed you too." She hoped he could read what was under her words. _I'm here. I'm not leaving._

But she could tell that he was done talking about this, that he'd said as much as he was able to for right now, that it was hurting him too much to talk about it. She smiled at him. "So, you missed me, huh? Hope you didn't give your new partner too much of a hard time."

"I might've at first," he admitted, "but not because of you."

"Come on," she said, standing up and gently pulling him to his feet. "We're supposed to be checking on Sarah, remember? You can tell me the story on the way up."

"Well," he said as they walked out of the room, "she wasn't a bad cop, but it was pretty clear our new Captain had a soft spot for her..."

xxxxxxxxx

"Hold that thought," Carolyn said with a smile, interrupting Mike in the middle of regaling her with tales of the two partners he'd had after she left. "We're here."

Mike looked through the glass window, seeing the crib with the _Goren_ sign on it. "Damn, she's tiny. Poor kid, spending her first days of life hooked up to all those machines."

"That's what's keeping her alive," she pointed out.

"I know, and I'm grateful. I just wish it wasn't necessary." He shook his head. "Who the hell shoots at a pregnant woman?"

 _The same man who would rape one and throw her down the stairs._ But Carolyn didn't say it out loud. Though she knew, especially after what had just been revealed, that Mike would understand, but it wouldn't be right for her to expose Alex's private trauma that way. "I know. But everyone says she's going to be okay. They both are."

Their conversation was forestalled when the older man who had been standing beside Sarah's incubator came walking out towards them, only to stop short when he saw who was there. Remembering Alex's words, Mike stepped forward. "Mr. Eames, I presume? Your daughter's told me a lot about you."

"I don't need to ask who _you_ are," the older man replied warmly, reaching out his hand to shake Mike's. "I still have that newspaper clipping from 95."

"Me too," he admitted, "to remind me to stop and think once in a while."

"You? Think?" Carolyn teased. "That'll be the day."

Mike couldn't help but let out a laugh as he made the final introduction. It felt good after the emotional conversation he and Carolyn had just had.

"So you're Carolyn," John said as he shook her hand. "I've heard good things."

"About you too," she replied. "Alex really admires you, you know."

"I know." A warm smile split his face. "Not that she doesn't have plenty to be proud of on her own. Personal and professional," he added, glancing back at the incubator. "I have five children and now eleven grandchildren, but the miracle of new life never gets old to me."

As if realizing she was being talked about, the baby waved a fist in the air. Mike laughed out loud. "Looks like Bobby and Alex have a tough little girl on their hands."

"Alex's daughter?" John replied with a smile of his own. "Of course she's tough." A small shadow crossed his face, but the other two didn't ask.

Instead Carolyn changed the subject. "I'm sure Alex would like a few pictures. Think they'd let me bring a camera in there?"

"They let me," John replied. "Just - could you send me a few? The resolution on my camera isn't high enough, and I - I need a good picture of her."

"Of course," she said instantly. "Just give Mike a number to send them to, and we'll make it happen."

xxxxxxxxx

"Mike?"

"Hmm?" He blinked his eyes open, trying to get his bearings.

"I said it's time to wake up."

He turned towards the sound of the voice. Seeing Carolyn sitting beside him in the driver's seat finally woke him up enough that he could remember what had brought him into this situation. They had spent another half-hour with Alex until it became clear she was running out of energy and becoming too tired for visitors. When they had left, upon finding out he'd taken the train, Carolyn had offered to give him a ride home. He'd gotten into her car, but he only remembered leaving the parking lot, and then her calling his name.

 _I fell asleep in her car,_ he realized. "Damn, Carolyn, I'm sorry."

"Don't. It's okay."

He looked around, realizing for the first time that the area didn't look entirely familiar. "Where...?"

"My apartment." She smiled at him. "I have space, and since the other option with you asleep was picking your pocket to check the address on your license, I thought this was the best solution." She pulled the keys from the ignition. "Come on, let's go."

Feeling like he was still not entirely awake, he allowed her to lead him inside. "Here," she said gently, leading him to the living room. "The couch is pretty comfortable, and you look like you could use a longer nap."

"Carolyn," he stammered out, "don't think I'm not grateful, but I don't understand - exactly what is _this_?"

She lightly ran a hand through his hair, guiding him down to the couch. "For right now, it's one friend helping another. Discussion of anything else can wait until you feel better."

"I feel fine," he objected.

"You're exhausted," she chided gently. "Sleep and then we'll talk. I promise."

He knew she wasn't going to budge, and if he was to be honest with himself, sleep was a tempting thought. He kicked his shoes off and laid down - Carolyn was right, the couch _was_ comfortable, and long enough for even his tall frame.

He felt something soft begin to fall over his body, and as he looked up, he realized she was draping an afghan over him. He barely had time to process that before she was bending over him, running her hands over his head and neck. "It's okay, Mike," she murmured. "You're safe now, it's okay. You can sleep. You're safe."

He drifted off with her voice in his ear.

xxxxxxxxx

The first think Mike noticed when his eyes fluttered open again was that it was dark. The second was that he had woken because he was hungry and he needed to use the bathroom. It was such a _normal_ reason to wake up from a sound sleep, so unlike the past three months, that he actually felt his heart leap.

He sat up slowly, attracting the attention of the room's other occupant in a chair nearby. He looked over at Carolyn, noticing that she had changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt. _And she still looks amazing._ "What time is it?"

"About ten-thirty."

" _Ten-thirty?_ " he repeated in shock. "I slept for seven hours?"

"Just about," she said with a smile. "You look better for it, too. How do you feel?"

"Better than I have for awhile," he admitted, only for his stomach to growl its protest of his statement. "Though I could stand to eat something. And, um, where's your bathroom?"

"Through there." She pointed down the hall. "The door on the left."

By the time he was done in the bathroom, a pan of lasagna from a local take-out place was sitting on Carolyn's small table. He looked at it in amazement. "You just happened to have this lying around?"

She blushed ever so slightly. "No," she admitted. "I remembered how much you liked it, so after you fell asleep I ordered out, and it went straight into the oven so it would be ready when you woke up." She served a generous piece onto a plate and set it in front of him. "Lack of sleep can make it hard to keep to a regular schedule on other things."

"Like eating?" he asked wryly before shoving a huge forkful of food into his mouth.

"Exactly." She began working on a smaller piece. "And I knew you haven't eaten since at least noon because I've been with you that whole time. Given those two factors, I figured you'd be hungry."

"Can't argue with that," he said between bites.

Carolyn only nodded, allowing him to devour his food in silence. He inhaled three huge pieces of the lasagna, barely stopping for breath, as she watched him while eating more slowly. He'd clearly been eating less even than he'd let on, and his body was finally trying to force him to make up for it. It was only after he was clearly done and she'd put the leftovers in the freezer and the dishes in the sink that she opened what she knew was going to be a serious conversation. "I did promise we'd talk after you'd had a chance to get some sleep, so if you want to..."

"I want to," he replied immediately. "Though I'm not sure it'll be as easy as I thought it would be when I was falling asleep." He laughed. "Damn, look at this. Me, Mike Logan, not sure how to talk to a woman. No one will ever believe it."

"I believe it," she said seriously. "And I would even if I wasn't sitting right here. I'd wager that the kind of talking to a woman you're familiar with isn't going to be any help in this situation. I don't mean that as a criticism," she added quickly. "It's an observation. Casual dating is one thing, and whatever... _this_...is or will be, I don't think casual dating is it. For what it's worth, this is new to me too."

"Really?" He couldn't hide his surprise. "Pretty girl like you, you've never had a serious relationship?"

Carolyn let out a sound halfway between a scoff and a laugh. "Oh, you have no idea. If anything, that's been the bane of my dating life."

"How does that work?" Mike asked incredulously. "Seems kind of backwards to me."

"It does, doesn't it? But people who only see the way I look are usually less than thrilled when they find out I'm more than just a pretty face."

"You are so much more," he said before he could stop himself. "You're one of the smartest people I've ever known - and I only have to put that qualifier in there because I know Bobby."

She smiled. "You're pretty smart yourself, you know."

"Not compared to the two of you I'm not."

"Yes," she said with surprising force, "you are. I've seen you work, remember? You have an incredible level of intuition. You understand what's going on with people, right there in the moment. Like in our first case, when you knew that guy was going to try and climb out the bathroom window. I would've lost him from that stunt, but you anticipated it and were right there to grab him."

"Cop instinct, sweetheart. Nothing more."

"Don't sell yourself short. I've known a lot of seasoned cops who don't have half the instinct you do." She paused for a moment. "I guess you'd know more than most people about being seen as one thing when there's so much more to you. Ever since that incident in 95, you've been seen as 'the cop with the anger problem'. You told me once that even before that, most people thought of you as a hothead. Now I know you can be, but like you said about me, you're so much more than that."

"You really think that?"

"I _know_ it," she insisted. "You stopped to help that girl you were telling me about, didn't you? How many other people stopped?"

"None." He couldn't keep the bitterness out of his tone at that recollection. "Not one person stopped to help a little girl in trouble."

"Actually, _one_ person did," she reminded him. "You."

"Okay," he conceded. "But what does that have to do with this?"

"You feel things very intensely," she replied. "You feel for the victims. And yes, that sometimes leads you to do things you might regret. But it also makes you better at what you do the rest of the time. I'd bet there are at least a few people alive today because of the dedication those feelings brought into the mix. And I have no doubt that the child you can't stop thinking about is one of them."

He nodded slowly. "It's worth it," he said finally. "I can live with the constant memories if it means that girl has a chance at a decent childhood."

"I know." Again she laid her hand on top of his. "I saw you lay your soul bare in front of that horrible foster mother on the mere hope that that would be enough to stop the carnage she was inflicting on innocent families."

She felt it then, just as she had earlier in the day. He moved his hand ever so slightly into her touch. It was so subtle that she doubted he was even aware of it, but it told her all she needed to know. "Let me help," she whispered.

"How?" He wanted more than anything to banish those memories back to the dark corner of his mind where they usually lived, but it seemed impossible.

"I don't know exactly," she admitted, "but we'll figure it out together." She began rubbing circles on his hand with her thumb. "You tell me what you need, what helps you feel better, and we'll go from there, okay?"

He stared at her in disbelief. "Why - why are you doing all this for me?"

"Because you don't deserve this," she said gently, shoving down her anger at everyone who had made Mike feel like he wasn't worth bothering with.. "And because I care about you."

He still stared at her as though the words weren't registering, and she decided it was worth taking the chance she'd been contemplating for several minutes now. Standing and stepping around the table, she pulled him into her arms.

At first, Mike was shocked, though not unpleasantly so, by her actions. But her touch was so warm and comforting that after a few moments, he simply melted into the embrace. "Carolyn..." he gasped out.

"Shh," she soothed, rubbing circles on his back with both hands. "It's okay now. You're going to be okay."

His shoulders hitched with a sob he refused to release. It was one lesson that had been beaten into him almost from infancy: he was never supposed to cry. No matter how severe his mother's rage at any given time, tears would make it worse. By the age of five, he had learned how not to cry regardless of whatever pain was inflicted on him. But for some reason, he was having more trouble with it here and now than he had on even the worst days of his childhood. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly to hold back the tears that threatened to fall.

Carolyn stopped rubbing his back in favor of wrapping her arms fully around her friend and pulling him even closer. "It's okay, Mike," she said again. "Let it go. You'll feel better."

 _Feel better_. For so long that had been an impossible dream; the best he could hope for was to push the painful memories as far out of his everyday life as they would go. But the idea of crying in front of anyone was still tripping that instinct he had formed so long ago. When Krolinsky had first been arrested, it had been only the sheer magnitude of the trust between him and Lennie that had allowed him to shed a few tears on the man's shoulder, and even then, he had never fully lost control. But he was so close to the edge now; if he let his guard down at all, he knew there would be no stopping the flood.

Despite his best efforts, his shoulders hitched again and a sob rose in his throat. He tried instinctively to swallow it back but choked, which triggered another sob, and then he just broke down in Carolyn's arms, crying like he couldn't remember ever crying before. He shook and sobbed, releasing years of repressed pain that had been floating so dangerously close to the surface of his mind for the past several months, and through it all Carolyn just held and rocked him. "That's it," she whispered into his hair. "Just cry it all out."

He had no concept of how long it took before he ran out of tears to cry and slowly lifted his face from her shoulder. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, staring at the floor. "So sorry. This isn't how I pictured today playing out. I wanted to spend some time with you, and instead you've spent the day taking care of me."

She gently caressed the side of his face. "Don't apologize. Apart from this not being your fault at all, I'm not upset in the slightest." She sat down in front of him so she could look him in the eyes. "If anything, I'm amazed by what happened here today."

"What?"

"I'm amazed," she repeated. "And humbled. Do you have any idea of the gift you just gave me? I know how hard it is for you to be vulnerable like that. That you trust me enough to let me see that - I'll remember that for a long time."

She leaned forward then, slightly but, he would realize later, with clear purpose. Without thinking, he mirrored her action, and their lips met in the middle. The kiss was soft and gentle, nothing like Mike had imagined kissing her would be, but in that moment, it was perfect. His battered psyche was too raw for him to have enjoyed the level of passion he had once fantasized about.

"Does that clear up any doubts?" she asked softly.

"Y-yeah," he whispered between deep breaths, trying to slow his heart rate back to normal.

She noticed, and smiled. "I surprise you?"

He shook his head, looking back at the floor. "Not exactly. It's just, I thought - I was sure that telling you about Father Joe would kill any chance of us ever being more than friends. How could - how could any woman want me after -?"

"Mike, look at me."

Her forceful command seemed to compel him to obey, and he raised his eyes to meet hers as she continued. "Mike, I don't - no, that's not entirely true," she amended. "I _do_ care, but only in the sense that it makes me so angry that someone hurt you that way. It doesn't change the way I see you, or the way I feel about you."

"How?" he asked almost brokenly.

"Because - because it changes nothing, Mike. You were a little boy who was taken advantage of in the worst possible way. _You_ didn't do anything."

"You're right about that," he said bitterly. "I didn't do _anything_. Didn't scream, didn't try to fight, I even stopped saying no after a few minutes. I just stood there and let him - let him -"

Now _she_ was on the verge of tears. "No, Mike. You didn't _let_ him do anything. Look at me," she insisted again. "Look at me and listen, because I'm going to tell you something you should have heard a long time ago. It wasn't your fault, Mike. It doesn't matter what you did or didn't do. He had no right to touch you." She ran her hand gently over his head. "Where is he now? Please tell me he's dead, or at least locked up."

He grimaced. "Wish I could. He did go to trial eventually, McCoy found a loophole in the SOL, but right when everything was falling into place he let him plead down to fifteen years." He couldn't keep the disgust and anger he still felt at that turn of events out of his voice. "He got out four years ago, and the DA's office didn't even bother to let me know. If Don Cragen hadn't heard through the grapevine and given me a heads-up, I might never have been told."

Carolyn's brow furrowed. "Where is he now?"

"Don't know, don't care as long as I don't have to see him. Once he left the parish, I was hoping I'd never see him again. The trial in 95 was already more face-time with him than I ever wanted, and I had nightmares for weeks because of it." He thought again of Lennie, of the night after the sentencing when his partner had found him on the roof and had seemed to know exactly what he needed but couldn't ask for. It had been the first time since the start of that awful case that he had felt like he just might come through okay. And in this room, with Carolyn, things seemed to be coming together the same way.

A sudden wave of fatigue hit him, coming on the heels of relief, and his head started to fall forward. He quickly pulled it back up, but not before Carolyn noticed. She ran her hand gently over the back of his neck. "Oh, Mike, you're exhausted. Come on, let's get you lying down."

He stood, heading back towards the couch, but she put an arm around him to steer him towards the bedroom door instead. He stopped, turning to face her. "Carolyn, I'm not -"

"Shh," she interrupted gently, clearly reading everything he wanted to say on his face. "All we're going to do is sleep. I promise. But you need a real bed, and this way I can stay with you."

As the door opened, he allowed himself the momentary pleasure of looking around Carolyn's bedroom. It was far from the first woman's bedroom he'd ever been in, but it was quite possibly the most significant one. But his exhaustion caught up with him quickly, and he began working at the buttons of his shirt, trying to get it off. He was so tired that he could barely get his fingers to do what he needed.

Seeing his struggle, Carolyn reached for the buttons, moving his hands out of the way in the process. But as she did, his entire body tensed. "Don't...please..."

She immediately dropped her hands as though the fabric burned her. His posture relaxed and he began fumbling at the buttons again. "I'm sorry, Carolyn."

"No, _I'm_ sorry. I shouldn't have assumed that would be okay."

He shook his head, finally getting the last button open. "You were trying to help."

"I still should have asked first," she insisted as he moved down to the button on his pants.

"Carolyn," he said softly, "I need you to know...it's not you."

Tears stung her eyes. "I know, Mike, I know."

He let his jeans fall to the floor, stepping out of them so he was just in his t-shirt and boxers. She eased him down onto the bed. "What I said before about telling me what you need? That applies here too. I want you to tell me if something doesn't feel right. I never want to do anything to hurt you."

"It's not - you didn't - it's just - _he_ took my clothes off me," Mike finally managed to stammer out. "Usually it doesn't bother me, but tonight for some reason -"

"Because those memories are raw right now," she replied gently. "You said it yourself, this case tore all that open for you. It's understandable that you'd be more sensitive to triggers. I am so sorry." She gently ran her fingers over the side of his face. "I should've been more careful."

"Carolyn..." He was fading fast, but as far as he was concerned this conversation couldn't wait. "It isn't fair, you shouldn't have to."

"You're right," she replied softly. "It _isn't_ fair that you were hurt so badly. It isn't fair that you can't live your life without battling those memories. I wish so much that I could just take that all away from you. But since I can't, I want to do whatever I can to help. I don't _have_ to, I _want_ to." She gently laid a finger over his lips to forestall any protest. "If you really want to argue this with me, we can do it tomorrow. Right now, you need to sleep."

He couldn't disagree with that; he was barely able to keep his eyes open. He let Carolyn guide his head to a pillow. He was almost asleep when he heard her ask, "Can I hold you?"

"Yes," he breathed.

She slid into the bed next to him, wrapping her arms around him and pulling his head to her shoulder. Just as it had before, warmth and comfort seemed to radiate from her touch. He closed his eyes and was instantly asleep in her arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah...an interlude, just like the chapter title says. This wasn't originally going to be part of the story, but after writing out the Logan scenes in Little Girl Lost, I wanted to have a chance to really explore his reaction to those events in a way that I didn't think I could in scenes with a virtual stranger (i.e. the SVU team).
> 
> This chapter is my first solid link between this plot arc and the side arc of A New Reality and Little Girl Lost, making them firmly part of the same series (the plotlines will merge fully in a subsequent story). It also officially incorporates my oneshot Friends to Believe In into this series, making that chronologically the first installment in the series, albeit not one that's necessary to understand the rest of it. As is the case with that oneshot, this chapter references the original L&O series episode Bad Faith. The chapter also references the CI episodes Diamond Dogs and To The Bone.
> 
> John's reason for asking Carolyn to send him photos of Sarah will be revealed in a later chapter.
> 
> If you're enjoying this story, I'd love to hear what you think! Please feel free to leave comments.


	17. Not So Different

"How was the IAB interview?" Olivia asked, pulling out the other chair at the small table where Bobby had been sitting.

"Rough. I don't know if it's because of my department reputation or because I'm not a cop anymore or something else entirely, but they pushed pretty hard. They were professional," he added quickly, "but they ran the whole thing down detail by excruciating detail, and I'm not even the focus of their investigation, I can't be, IAB doesn't investigate civilians."

"I shouldn't be asking you this, but - could you get a sense for who was, if anyone?"

He frowned. "It was kind of hard to tell. The two detectives doing the questioning were kind of out of sync with each other. I got the sense they weren't totally on the same page."

"Two?" Olivia was frowning now too. "Tucker interviewed most of the unit by himself."

"Well, I'm the one who pulled the trigger," he replied, grimacing. "Since that's the focal event, I guess they thought I'd have something more to give them. Tucker brought a younger guy with him - Cassidy, I think."

"Cassidy?" Olivia repeated. "He used to be SVU."

"Really?" Goren said interestedly. "He was the real wild card in the room. Tucker was pretty stoic throughout, though he did say near the end that, off the record, if he was the DA he wouldn't charge me over the shooting, and I could tell he meant it. But Cassidy - he was nodding along with me when I was explaining about Alex being in danger and shooting to protect her, but he really dug in when it came to asking questions about what Amaro did. Tucker had to back him off. If Cassidy were calling the shots, I think Amaro would be in it pretty deep, but he's the junior detective, and I don't think Tucker's quite as eager."

"That's not entirely a surprise. We worked a case with Cassidy a few years ago, and he and Nick got off on the wrong foot. I don't think he'd intentionally target Nick, he's got more integrity than that, but he might not realize that his personal bias is running away with him." Olivia sighed. "I know Nick's not going to get off scot-free for leaving his weapon unsecured, but I at least hope they'll be reasonable and take the circumstances into account. So," she added, changing the subject, "how's Sarah doing?"

He grimaced, and she leaned forward slightly, her face a mask of concern. "It's bad?"

"No. I mean, she's doing fine, it's just -" he let out a slow breath, shaking his head. "Something that's bothering me, that's all."

"You want to talk about it?" she offered.

He considered that for a moment. "I don't think you'd understand."

"Try me."

He cocked his head to the side a bit at her challenge. "I need you to know, I love my daughter more than I could ever express. But...I worry about what I might have passed down to her. You see, the thing is...my father's not my father. My biological father was a serial killer who had an affair with my mom." He rubbed both hands over his face. "I've spent my whole life wondering if that's somewhere inside me too. And now to think I might have inflicted that on my daughter...my precious little baby..." he shook his head, unable to find the words to finish the thought. "I know, I sound like an idiot."

"No, Bobby," she said softly. "Not to me. I know exactly how you feel."

His eyes shot up to meet hers, seeing the truth of her words in them. "How?"

"My father was a serial rapist." Oddly, it didn't hurt as much as it usually did to reveal that fact. Somehow, just knowing that Bobby understood, on a level that very few people ever had, made the words easier to say. "He raped my mother. That's how I was conceived."

"Olivia, I'm sorry."

"It's okay," she replied immediately. "I've known ever since I was a child, I had a lot of time to come to terms with the idea of where I come from. You haven't, have you?"

"You _are_ good," he said with the faintest shadow of a smile. "No, I really haven't. I only found out seven years ago, just before he died. Until then, I'd always assumed my mother's husband...I mean, it's a logical assumption...it does explain why he didn't like me very much, though."

"It might explain it, but it doesn't excuse it." She couldn't help but feel a flash of anger towards the man who had snubbed a child for the circumstances of his conception, just as her own mother had done. "Everybody has choices."

Something resembling a smile crossed Bobby's lips. "Why do I get the feeling we're talking about more than bad parents blaming us for being born?"

"Well, now that you mention it..." she shrugged. "Look, I of all people know it's not this simple, but if it makes any difference...when it comes to what's inside you, I don't think you have anything to worry about."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because I know you. Because I saw you flinch when you talked about pulling the trigger in the Johnson shooting. You had every reason to want him dead, the shooting was justified, and it still upsets you that you had to kill. A lot of reasonable people wouldn't feel the way you do, to say nothing of a cold-blooded killer."

"Um...I guess...yeah, I guess you have a point." Until then, the only connection he'd been able to make between Brady and the events of two days earlier had been to think that it proved what he had always feared. It hadn't occurred to him that the very fact that the shooting made him sick was a factor.

"Don't be too hard on yourself." Olivia's voice drew him out of his contemplation. "It's always easier to see the truth in other people. I still catch myself sometimes thinking I'm just like my mother, shoving my child aside for my own convenience if I do something that makes one of the boys cry, even if it's something like putting Noah down for a nap or leaving them with a babysitter so Elliot and I can go out."

"Is that what I have to look forward to?"

He'd tried to pass it off as a joke, but she wasn't fooled. "You'll have times when you hold your parenting decisions up to the mirror of your birth father, yeah. But Bobby, that doesn't mean it has any basis in reality. _All_ parents make mistakes, it comes with the territory. I can already tell you're going to be a good father."

"Really?"

"Really."

xxxxxxxxx

"Um...Alex?"

She looked up, seeing the tall, wiry man standing in the doorway. "Zach! Come in."

He stepped in a little uncertainly. "I, um, I don't want to intrude."

"You're not intruding," she chided.

"Well, I mean, we haven't really kept that much in touch," he said, though he did step closer to the bed. "We talk what, a few times a year maybe?"

"And that's my fault as much as yours. Come on, sit down. You're hurting my neck looking up at you."

He laughed, relaxing a bit as he took a seat. "The perils of having tall friends."

"That's nothing new, anyway," she bantered back. "People always wondered why I wore heels in the office at Major Case. It was the only way Bobby and I would be in the same zip code."

"Speaking of which, I have something for you." He reached into his coat pocket. "For both of you, actually."

"Roses?" Alex teased.

He laughed again. "You know, I never told Danny, but I came clean to Megan a couple of days later that those weren't from me. I overheard her complaining to her sister that everyone was sending flowers when they were useless and would die a week later anyway, so I went out and bought her some things I thought she could use and then told her the flowers were Ross' idea and he didn't ask me first. We agreed not to tell him."

Alex was laughing now too, hard enough for him to raise an eyebrow. "I didn't think it was _that_ funny."

"It's just classic," she said, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. "Ross was a good man, but he was definitely into image, the gesture. Whereas I know people sometimes think you don't care because you don't go much for gestures, but really you're just putting more thought into what a person might actually want."

"Which brings us back to..." He handed her a rectangular package. "This is a little out there, but..."

Alex had already ripped open the paper and was now staring at the framed photograph she'd just unwrapped. It was unmistakably a picture of Sarah, but not Sarah as Alex had become accustomed to seeing her, in a sterile ICU incubator hooked up to multiple machines. In this photo, the baby was lying on a lacy pillow in front of a soft lilac background. Not a single wire or tube was attached to her body. "How..."

"A few favors and a lot of computer magic. It's not totally real, of course, but I thought you might like to have a picture of her in her first days that doesn't scream 'hospital'." He could see that tears were shimmering in her eyes. "I'm sorry, I..."

The next thing he knew, her arms were around his shoulders. "You think I don't like it? Zach, it's incredible. I never imagined I'd get to see her like this. Never mind how you did this...how did you even think of the idea?"

"Can I show you something?"

She nodded, settling back on the bed as he reached into his pocket. "Tell me you didn't bring something else for me."

"No, this is mine." He handed her a small photograph. "Here."

Alex took it, frowning in confusion. The picture depicted a girl who looked to be about seven or eight, a girl who was definitively not Sarah. "I don't understand. Who is she?"

"Her name's Andrea." The mention of the name brought a smile to Zach's face. "She's my daughter."

Alex nearly dropped the photo in shock. " _What_?"

"I know, I know. I've been getting that reaction a lot lately."

"Okay, let's forget the whole part where you swore you'd never be a parent. _When_ did you have a kid? She has to be at least, what, seven?"

"Nine. And as for your question, I haven't had her for all that long. She's not my biological child," he explained. "Technically, she's my foster daughter, though I'm hoping to change that soon."

"So you went from not wanting kids to fostering?"

"It's not quite that simple. More specifically, I went from not wanting kids to fostering _Andrea_." Again, Zach smiled at the thought of his child. "I met her about a year ago while working a case, and before I knew it she'd stolen my heart. She'd been in an untenable foster situation she was removed from. When I heard she had nowhere to go, I just...asked to take her in." He laughed lightly. "Of all the people to completely change my perspective on life, I didn't expect it to be a second-grader."

"Sounds like it's worked out, though," Alex said with a smile of her own.

"It has," he confirmed. "But bringing it back around to your original question, I don't have any pictures of Andrea that are more than a year old. I treasure all the ones I do have, but I wish I had some of her when she was a baby. Technically, you'll have pictures of Sarah as a newborn, but I thought you might not want to look at pictures of her covered in medical equipment all the time, so..." he gestured towards the altered photo.

Another laugh from Alex. "Only you would put all those pieces together _and_ come up with this idea from it. Which is why I'm glad you're my friend," she added. "This is an amazing gift, Zach. I'm sure Bobby will say the same; he should be back fairly soon."

Zach grimaced slightly, checking his watch. "I'm sorry, I can't. I promised Andrea I'd be home by four; I'll be cutting it close as it is. It's complicated," he added in a tone that suggested he was used to justifying himself, "but I really do need to be home when I said I would."

"You don't have to explain anything to me," she assured him. "I know kids, Zach. Go. But let's try to talk a little more than a few times a year from now on, okay?"

"Absolutely," he replied. "Let me know if you need anything."

As he left the room, they were both smiling.

xxxxxxxxx

"Lieutenant Eames, why were you at SVU headquarters on the moment before the shooting?"

"You know why," she replied shortly. "If it's not in the official file, I'm sure someone's told you by now."

"Yes," Tucker sighed, "but for the record, I need _you_ to tell me."

"I was there to make a voice identification of the man who raped me two months ago." She was pleased with herself for keeping her voice level as she said this.

"And where were you when the shooting began?"

"In the interview room with Sergeant Benson. I was preparing to leave when I heard the shots."

"What did you do then?"

"I looked out to see what was going on, and I saw a man enter the bullpen holding an officer hostage. I saw that the squad was unable to act because of the risk to her - he had his weapon at point-blank range to her head. I thought if I caught him by surprise, I might be able to convince him he wasn't getting out, or at least startle him enough to give someone a chance to take action, so I approached him from behind and ordered him to drop his weapon."

"Back up, Lieutenant. You said you saw 'a man' entering the bullpen. You do know who this man was?"

"I do now but I didn't at the time. His voice was muffled and up to that point I had never seen his face."

"And what happened after you approached him?"

"He turned. Rollins didn't turn with him. I had a shot at center mass and I took it, but he was moving and the target area was limited, so he was only wounded. At the same time, he fired two shots at me and I fell backwards from the impact into Sergeant Benson - I didn't even realize she was there until then. My arm went limp from one shot and I couldn't hold onto my gun. He raised his weapon at me and said something about it being fitting - that was when I realized who he was, I recognized his voice. I felt Olivia throw herself on top of me and I heard two shots. When I wasn't hit, I thought she had been. Then I saw him fall. It all gets a little fuzzy after that, bits and pieces. The next thing I remember clearly is waking up in a hospital bed and being told my daughter had had to be delivered prematurely because of the gunshot wound to my abdomen."

"That's all we need, Lieutenant. Thank you."

xxxxxxxxx

"Good news," Bobby said, bending over to kiss Alex. "Got the official word from the DA just now, they're not pursuing the shooting. I believe the exact words were 'justifiable defense of a third party'."

"That's great. Not that they wouldn't have been idiots for pursuing it, but I've seen some pretty idiotic stunts from DAs in the area." Charging Olivia Benson for the murder of William Lewis was at the top of the list as far as she was concerned.

"I got a pretty stern warning not to do it again," he admitted, "but I can live with that. It's not like I would anyway. It's the first time I've ever fired a weapon at an actual human being, and I hope to God it'll be my last."

"It's never easy," she said gently. "I've done it twice - three times if you count the non-fatal during the Johnson shootout. All three were to save a life, but you remember I didn't handle those two very well."

"I remember." He didn't like remembering, though. The pained expressions on her face still hurt him.

"Bobby, I know we're both up against more than our fair share here, but I just want you to know, I'm here for you." She pulled him to her, kissing his forehead. "I'm here. Just like you've always been for me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter left to go! Stay tuned!
> 
> This chapter references the SVU episode Post-Mortem Blues and my parallel story A New Reality (sorry to summarize, but I know not everyone reads both arcs and the arcs are headed for a merger after this story, so I try to keep everyone on the same page).
> 
> The idea about the photo came from a news article I read where a few anonymous people on the internet helped a grieving father digitally alter his baby's photo so he could have a picture of her without all the wires. Obviously, Sarah is still alive, but Alex and Bobby would still not get to see her without the equipment for months, and the idea fit so well with the kind of thing I think a character like Zach would do.


	18. Chapter 18

Alex's hand trembled as she slid it through the opening in the side of the incubator. Her family and friends had kept her well-supplied with pictures and information, but nothing would replace actually being able to touch her baby. Those two days had felt like an eternity.

"Hello, there, Sarah," she whispered. "Remember me? I'm your mommy." Her trembling fingers brushed against the ventilator tube and she had to choke back a sob. "Oh, baby, I'm so sorry you have to go through all this. I'm sorry I didn't protect you."

"Not your fault." Bobby's words startled her; she hadn't realized he was right behind her until he spoke.

She turned to him, anguished eyes looking into his warm ones. "At least she won't remember any of this. I don't think I could live with myself if I'd left my daughter with a memory of having a tube down her throat."

"Even if -" Bobby began, and then broke off, unable to say the words that would make the alternatives real in his mind. "Even if it hadn't turned out well," he said finally, "it still wouldn't have been your fault."

"You're a lot more certain of that than I am."

He gently wrapped his arms around her, pulling her back into his chest. "You're right, I probably am. I can barely begin to imagine what you went through, Alex. But I know, I'm absolutely certain, that it wasn't your fault."

"How?" she whispered. "You weren't there. How can you be so sure?"

"Because it's never a woman's fault." He deliberately avoided the word 'victim'. "I know you fought as hard as you possibly could, but even if you hadn't, it wouldn't have made it any more your fault. He had no right to attack you - or to shoot you," he added, laying a gentle hand on her bandaged abdomen.

"I still should have at least stayed in the room," she mumbled, ducking her head.

"Maybe," he conceded. "But if you had, Detective Rollins might have been killed. And I know you never could have lived with yourself if that had happened." He kissed the top of her head. "If you were different, you wouldn't be the Alex I fell in love with."

"Really." Skepticism laced her voice.

"Really." His warm smile met her eyes. "You don't believe me?" She didn't reply, but her unspoken response gave him the answer all the same. "Alex, I love _you_. All of you, exactly as you are." He gently turned her around to face him. "Nobody's perfect, Alex. God knows I'm not. But if there's one thing I've learned in all my years of profiling, it's that what defines us are the _ways_ that we're imperfect." He ran a finger over her cheek. "You took a risk to save a woman from a mass murderer. Even if that was a mistake, and I'm not conceding that it was, I think it tells the world everything they need to know about Alex Eames. And I hope," he added, glancing over her shoulder, "that our daughter turns out just like you. Although," he admitted, "I wouldn't be adverse to the idea of her choosing a less dangerous career than the police force."

Alex giggled a bit despite herself. "My family would probably consider this sacrilege, but I agree with you on that one. Maybe you can get her hooked on one of your many obsessions and she can have a nice safe career in research."

He laughed too. "Maybe. But only if she wants to. After all, she may have the Goren name, but she's an Eames too. Do you really think we'll be able to steer her anywhere she doesn't want to go?"

xxxxxxxxx

"You four, my office."

The detectives all exchanged looks as they filed into the Lieutenant's office. Fin pulled the door closed behind them, and they all stood in front of Murphy's desk.

As usual, the man didn't waste time beating around the bush. "IAB ruling on the Johnson shooting," he said briskly, opening a file that sat in front of him. "Benson, Tutuola, Rollins, you've all been cleared. IAB finds that you all acted appropriately given the circumstances."

Despite the good news, no one smiled. As one, all three of them turned to look at the detective whose name hadn't been mentioned. Olivia finally broke the tense silence. "What about Nick?"

"Amaro." Murphy picked up the recitation again. "IAB finds that you acted recklessly by leaving your weapon unsecured during an active shooting situation. You'll take a two week unpaid suspension for the violation."

For a long moment, all of them stood in silence, waiting to hear the rest. When nothing more was forthcoming, he finally managed to croak out a soft "that's it?"

"That's it," Murphy confirmed. "IAB found that while your actions were reckless, they likely had little if any impact on the outcome of the incident."

"In other words," Fin surmised, "Johnson was going to die no matter what, so Nick didn't cause anything to happen that wouldn't have happened anyway."

"Essentially, yes," Murphy admitted. "So, Amaro, I don't want to see you back here for two weeks. The rest of you, get back to work."

xxxxxxxxx

"Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Doctor."

The man smiled kindly. "Of course, Alex. I always try to get new patients in as soon as possible. Of course, in your case, Sergeant Benson insisted I try even harder than usual. Please, have a seat."

She complied. "I can believe that. Olivia says you're the best."

"That does bring me to one ground rule," he said, a little more firmly. "The only reason I'm even willing to confirm that Olivia is my patient in the first place is that she said it was okay. I know you two are friends, and it's not like I expect you to never mention her name, but I won't have in-depth discussions about one of my patients with another. I've told her the same about you, for what it's worth."

Alex nodded. "I understand."

"So," he said, sitting down across from her. "Why don't you tell me what you do want to talk about?"

She drew a deep breath, trying to prepare herself to tell her story one more time. "Three months ago, I was raped in a parking garage..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, there's more! Follow that series link to my new story, "Thought Police", a sequel to both this story and "Little Girl Lost". I'm expecting it to be a fun ride.
> 
> I am loving the comments so far! Keep them coming!


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